Cutting Carbon Dioxide Emissions

Whaddaya know? The US is cutting CO2 faster than anybody else without cap-and-trade, or the UN.

From http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2012/06/29/us-carbon-output-forecasts-shrink-again/

Quote:
“No cap and trade, no huge new taxes on oil, no draconian driver restrictions, no air conditioning bans, no rationing — and the US is on track to cut its CO2 emissions 17 percent below the 2005 levels by 2020 — and to keep cutting our emissions levels beyond that.”

“…the United States of America basically blew the global greens off completely, trampling all over their carbon tax and cap and trade agendas, and earning wails and shrieks of hatred at the Rio+20 Summit — while making huge strides toward reducing CO2 emission levels.”

“…the United States of America is living proof that there are more ways to address environmental concerns than the green movement as a whole is willing to admit.”

“The truth is that if CO2 emissions are going to come down, it’s going to happen the American way rather than the Greenpeace way.”

Taxcutter says:
Just think how much we could cut CO2 if the US got over Fukushima hysteria and started building nukes to replace fossil fuel plants and electrified its freight railroads.

Of course, the American Way is not acceptable to Greens because it does not crush the US economy or provide adequate scope for UN corruption.

 

Enviros don't wanna hear stuff like this.

 

Don't forget social change and "re-distribution of wealth".......

 

LOL. As usual, the clueless denier cultists have no idea what is going on or why or what it means. It is sad to see people so duped and bamboozled by fossil fuel industry lies and propaganda that they totally misunderstand everything.

Can U.S. carbon emissions keep dropping? That depends on Congress.
Washington Post
June 26, 2012
(excerpts)

Here’s a green trend that more people should know about: Since 2007, the United States has managed to curtail its global-warming pollution by quite a bit — energy-related carbon emissions have fallen roughly 6 percent over the past five years. Some of that, it’s true, has been due to the recession. Less economic activity means less demand for energy. But not all of it. The drop has also come as cheap natural gas has forced power companies to shutter their coal plants. And some of that decline can be attributed to various conservation measures (Americans, for instance, are driving less and buying more fuel-efficient cars). All told, though, the drop in such pollution is real. The United States has been slowly inching toward President Obama’s climate goal of cutting carbon emissions to 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020. The key question is whether this progress will continue. Will U.S. carbon emissions keep falling? Or were the past five years just a weird blip? Here’s one way to look at it: The Energy Information Administration just published its Annual Energy Outlook for 2012 report (pdf), and this chart offers up three scenarios for the future.



Let’s look at the options. The “Reference” case is what EIA predicts will happen if Congress doesn’t enact any new energy measures between now and 2035. Renewable energy will keep getting cheaper and more popular, natural gas will continue to displace coal, and the energy-efficiency of buildings will improve slowly. Carbon emissions from the energy sector will start rising again, though the country will still stay below 2007 levels. The United States will miss its climate targets by a lot. Now here’s where Congress comes in. The “No Sunset” case is what happens if Congress keeps a slew of energy measures from expiring soon. That means extending the 2.2-cents-per-kilowatt-hour production tax credit for wind, solar and geothermal power. It means extending separate tax grants for solar power, cellulosic biofuels and energy-efficient buildings. Basically, Congress would keep all the policies that are on the books and not let anything lapse. Under this scenario, renewable power grows even more rapidly, and carbon emissions rise more slowly than in the Reference case — but they still increase. Again, the country misses its climate goals. Okay, let’s check out that tantalizing third scenario — “Extended Policies.” This would require politicians to take a few more proactive steps. Congress would not only renew all the tax credits described above, but the government would also set ambitious new federal efficiency standards for buildings, appliances and other equipment. For instance, building codes would be updated so that new structures would be 30 percent more efficient by 2020. Under this option, carbon emissions keep falling for the next two decades. (The country would likely miss its climate goals under all three scenarios, but it would at least come close under the “Extended Policies” option.)

 

OMG !!! Its another hockey stick !!!

 

"The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy;
that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness."

Damm conservatives....wanting to keep what they worked for.....where do they get the gall??

 

What an amazingly silly and meaningless response!!!

 

...and what if government got the legal impediments to nuclear power out of the way?

 

Granny says, "Dat's right - one day there won't be no air to breathe an' den we all gonna die...

Carbon dioxide passes symbolic mark
10 May 2013 - Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere have broken through a symbolic mark.

 

Ain't been so much CO2 inna air since the dinosaurs was a-fartin'...

Experts: CO2 record illustrates 'scary' trend
May 11,`13 WASHINGTON (AP) -- The old saying that "what goes up must come down" doesn't apply to carbon dioxide pollution in the air, which just hit an unnerving milestone.

 

"The last time CO2 was regularly above 400ppm was three to five million years ago." - from the article.

That's a long time ago. Deniers would have us believe that it's just coincidence that now, at least 3 million years later, CO2 is at those high levels again, AND we're pumping huge amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere. Or do deniers admit that human industrial activity is causing this record rise in CO2, but deny the physics of CO2 and atmospheric temperatures?

As for the denier claim that CO2 rises in the past have preceded warming periods,two recent studies have shown no time lag between rises in temperatures and CO2 levels:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/01/temperature-atmospheric-carbon-dioxide_n_2792149.html

In a way, I wish the deniers were right, and that we humans aren't doing this to ourselves. But we are.

 

No they haven't. Anyone can publish a study and claim that they are correct. But most published studies are wrong. The data still shows that CO2 lags the temperature.

I find it funny how you guys take this (*)(*)(*)(*) at face value because someone published it. All they did was add an adjustment that is already in the data. And of course it was published in science because science will publish anything that helps AGW.

 

...and the Chinese are still the world's No. 1 emitter of CO2...and pulling away.

 

Oh yes, because we all know that if those laws went away, every corporation in the nation will remove all pollution controls and simply dump out as much pollution as they can!



In case anybody has missed it, over the last 40 years "Being Green" is the new green. Companies are increasingly reusing waste water and reducing emissions and recycling. Not only because it helps the bottom line, it also is great PR. The use of reclaimed industrial water for irrigation, the use of biodiesel and alternative fuels for vehicle fleets, the list simply goes on and on.

I bet that most people are completely unaware that a large percentage of the gypsum used in drywall is recovered from the scrubbers installed in coal fired plants. Most of these types of systems have more then paid for themselves, because they recover chemicals that have commercial value. Mercury, Carbon, Gypsum, Sulfides, and a great many other chemicals that are then sold and reused.

Does anybody really think that any company would not continue doing this?

 

Silver lining to higher CO2 levels...

Arid Areas Greening Because of Higher CO2 Levels
May 31, 2013 > Higher levels of carbon-dioxide has caused some of the Earth’s most arid regions to become more green, according to new research.

 

This is also part of CO2 rise. CO2 is basically "food for plants", and the more of it is free in the atmosphere, the more plants grow (and spread) to take advantage of it. CO2 is a critical gas for plants, because that is how they obtain the carbon they need for growth (and as a waste product emit O2).

But the climate micromanagers do not want plant growth spreading. They want it to remain exactly the same it is, because the spreading of plants into places like the Sahara Desert will likely make extinct the purple bellied dung beetle, which only survives in a small 2 mile wide fringe on the edge of the desert. So the spreading of plants and destruction of this would of course be the fault of man, another "man caused extinction".

I have long questioned how much of the "rise in CO2" has been a result not of pollution as much as deforestation and urbanization. It seems to me that the best way to solve this issue would be to plant millions of acres of bamboo, then to cut it down and sink it into the bottom of the ocean, over and over again. Trap lots of that pesky CO2 and create a big enough sink to fill the Marianas Trench.

 

give the credit to Obama's economic policies, manufacturing is becoming extinct in the US

 

That is nothing new, and I certainly would not blame it on President Obama. Manufacturing in the US has been on the decline for almost half a century now.

Steel, textiles, electronics, pretty much everything that we used to do mostly domestically are not predominated by imports. Even companies like Levi-Strauss have moved the majority of their manufacturing overseas. More then any President, it is the Unions I think that deserve most of this blame.

 

"give the credit to Obama's economic policies, manufacturing is becoming extinct in the US"

Taxcutter says:
There's a lot to that. When you have wait on government permits to make something, its easier to go offshore.

 

nope... on a per person basis Qatar is 1st 44 tonnes of CO2 emissions per capita....USA is 12th 17.2 tonnes per capita....China is a distant 55th with 6.6 tonnes per capita...

 

agree

disagree, the unions are ultimately the reason you enjoy a respectable wage and standard of living...the drive for higher corporate profit(globalization) is why the western industrialized nations are losing manufacturing jobs...

 

And that means absolutely nothing! You might as well give us a percentile instead of a percent.

That is a per capita figure based upon the population Wyly. With a population of just under 1.4 billion (as opposed to the US with just over 315 million) China could be pumping out almost 5 times the total pollutions as the US, and still show it is releasing less. Because you have given us an absolutely meaningless statistic that has nothing to do with the issue at all.

And guess what? Even a rough estimate of comparing populations with your emissions figures shows that per equal population, China emits a lot more then the US does. How about giving us numbers that actually mean something there, eh?

Oh yes, oh you are so right!

That is why I spent so long working for the only segment of the Federal Government that did not have a Union.


And oh yes, the IT industry also, so heavily dependent upon Unions, they would be paying us minimum wage if not for the IT Union.

Can I stop laughing yet?

 

Tons per capita don't mean anything to the atmosphere. Concentration is only affected by aggregate emission.

 

meaningless only because it's apparently to difficult for you to grasp...an individuals CO2 footprint is discussed all the time in this forum as a measurement of energy use and CO2 emissions, you yourself bragged how small a footprint you had...now that it's shown the per capita footprint of the chinese is approximately 1/3 of the average american you can't begin backpeddling fast enough, suddernly an individual's footprint is meaningless statistic...

yes I am absolutely right thank you...it's that supply and demand theory the free market always champions at work here...if one segment of the work force receives better pay then other segments must keep up or better remuneration if they want to attract good employees, higher union standards(wages and benefits) pulls other non-union sectors up with it...if a unionized company pays $30 + benefits per hour and a private company pays $15 and no benefits where are you going to work? no I'm not going to believe you if you say private...if the private business wants to compete for the same employees it will need to equal or better the unionized rates if it wants to attract those same quality employees...

I promise I won't laugh while you wipe the egg off your face...

 

That is simply a standard of life issue. How many Chinese have their own car? How many have several cars? I bet it is a tiny fracton when compared to the average American. And as already stated, the largest cause is private vehicles.

So once again, using biased statistics that try to deflect by pointing it at individuals instead of a nation as an entirety.

No backpeddle. And yes, I still laugh because nobody answers that question, they avoid it, ignore it, or like you attack me for making it in the first place.

And thank you for helping to illustrate why so many jobs have left the country.

Let's go back to Levi-Strauss again. In the late 1980's and early 1990's they instituted an employee profit sharing program, and tried to keep as much of their production n the US as possible. But by the mid 1990's they were in debt and close to being bankrupt. Their competition had long moved overseas, and it was becoming impossible to compete with both the higher cost of US wages, and add to that a series of incidents between "Socialist Groups" that finally caused them to close their last major US facility in Texas and move it overseas.

So to take your comparison, I might very well take the $15 an hour job. Especially if I think the $30 an hour job may be with a company like say Solyndra, while the $15 an hour job is with Cisco (which will be there for a long time).

I always find it most funny when those on the left generally try to make everything about money. But they really do not understand either money or economy. Most of them simply can't understand how I could walk away from a $18 an hour job and take a $12 an hour job and do better financially for doing so (and one of my highest paying jobs was at minimum wage). Because them it is all about money.