Posted on 12/03/2009 5:15:34 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach
When President Obama goes to the Copenhagen climate change summit next week, he is expected to once again declare that the U.S. will reduce its carbon emissions 83% by 2050. Even though no legally binding agreement is expected, what Mr. Obama says in Denmark will define the U.S. position in subsequent international negotiations. He will not say how the cuts will be accomplished. For Americans, the details are worth knowing.
Annual U.S. carbon-dioxide emissions currently average about 5.5 tons of carbon per person. Achieving Mr. Obama's goal would mean reducing this to 0.63 tons per person by midcentury, taking expected population growth of just under 1% per year into account. If the rest of the world were to do likewise, global carbon dioxide emissions would be 25% lower than today.
Many climate scientists think this would put the world on track to avoid the worst consequences of climate change. Of course, other countries may well have a different view of global equity. This includes China, which in the president's version would have to reduce its rapidly increasing per capita emissions to half the current level by 2050.
Most anthropogenic CO2 emissions come from fossil fuels, so there are two main routes to achieving the president's goal. First, the U.S. must reduce the share of fossil fuels—currently 85%—in the energy supply system, which includes everything from electricity generation and transportation to industrial uses. And second, Americans must use energy more efficiently.
The more we do of one, the less we'll need of the other. But ultimately what's required will depend on America's future economic growth.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
I know! Sometimes I feel like the last guy running around at the end of the Invasion of the Body Snatchers when I go to work on the North Shore of Mass.
The people down there (and now in NH) believe this stuff hook, line, and sinker. And they won't believe anything else. And then they drive away in their Chevy Suburbans and Yukon's.
You could take them at their word and set their SUVs on fire. Looks different when it’s not Earth First doing something about it on some dealer’s inventory.
CLIMATEGATE SCANDAL AND THE DEFEAT OF AUSTRALIA’S EMISSION’S TRADING SYSTEM
This has nothing to do with Climate and everything to do with establishing a world government bent on Malthusian population control.
the ‘chickens are coming home to roost?”
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