Read the article carefully. There is one vague paragraph stating air travel went up 3%. Nowhere does it state that air travel is the most emmitting activity most people do. So coy! There is a huge force, either the writers own addictions and cognitive dissonance about the massive damage flying does - or its the airline industry who is suppressing this fact. Taking short pleasure trips multiple times a year is part of an unsustainable lifestyle that needs to change. Waiting around for an "carbon neutral" plane is like keeping smoking while you wait for "cancer free" cigarettes...and as if you have emphysema already.
7
It will be interesting to see what the final numbers are when finalized this month or next, and see how much of the impact was heating bills. But we do have to make sure the overall trend is down.
I like to think that some Republicans are slowly escaping their party's rigid line on climate - certainly the Republican mayors in South Florida are fed up enough to raise taxes to deal with the early stage of impacts, and plenty of rural areas are getting nice new revenue from wind farms, without risk of spills.
So call a Republican elected official, and ask them to do something to reduce CO2. Eventually they'll listen - even Sarah Palin was making action plans against climate change as governor in Alaska before she hit the big time and all that Fox money. So it wasn't too long ago when the GOP was a bit more sensible.
But anyone who has experienced the pleasure of standing next to a batch of electric buses instead of smelly, noisy diesels will push for more of those. Cost a bit more upfront, but less long term.
If you can choose who you can buy your power from, do a bit of research and pick those with the least fossil in the mix, especially coal. Wind, solar, nuclear, then gas, all preferable to coal.
Your power company might offer incentives to economize, too. Discounts on EnergyStar appliances, pay to cut your power use during peak hours, they save from not having to build more infrastructure, so take their offers.
2
Natural gas is a fossil fuel. Further, it is a good part methane that is much worse at trapping heat than carbon dioxide, so switching power plants to natural gas makes warming worse.
ooops. pretty stupid???
Of course the chart does not show per capital emissions. I wonder why? Could it be that they are lower today than they were in 1990?
@Erik
We're only burning fossil fuels a million times faster than nature replenishes them.
Which has blown the long term carbon cycles out of the water. So the cycle was doing 180 to 280 parts per million atmospheric CO2 by volume over about ten thousand years, and we have done more change than that in a hundred years.
Keeling Curve of atmospheric CO2, 1700-present: https://scripps.ucsd.edu/programs/keelingcurve/wp-content/plugins/sio-bluemoon/graphs/co2_800k_zoom.pdf
@Erik Frederiksen and yet, all human activities including exhaling account for less than 3% of the CO2 cycle. Go figure.
2
@Bob. The Industrial Age, which began about 250 years ago, saw the CO2 concentration rise from 280 to over 400 PPM, because of the increased burning of fossil fuels. Yes, CO2 remains a trace gas, but it has strong absorption bands in the infrared, where we exhaust our excess heat, whereas oxygen and nitrogen are transparent in the visible part of the EM spectrum, where we get most of our solar energy, and also in the infrared exhaust region. I am a doddering 82 year old, but I was an Air Force meteorologist for 22 years.
3
This summer, just a 2 hour drive from me, the town of Paradise, CA was incinerated by the Camp Fire.
It was very smoky here in Sonora much of this past summer due to the Ferguson Fire which closed much of Yosemite National Park and other nearby fires.
Fire behavior has been getting more extreme here in California, and around the world as we saw a year or two in Greece. CalFire officials have recently described fire behavior here in California as "historic and unprecedented.”
The Rocky Fire in 2015 burnt 20,000 acres in one 5-hour period with little wind. That’s a speed normally associated with fires driven by the powerful Santa Ana winds. Fires now expand explosively at night and move downhill fast.
Recently satellites have spotted unusually large fires on Greenland just 40 miles from the ice sheet, dumping black carbon on 7.3 meters of sea level rise equivalent of ice, increasing heat retention and melt rate.
At a rise in temperature of 3 degrees C, a temperature we are quickly losing the ability to avoid, the Amazon Rainforest may burn releasing enough CO2 to push us well into a 4 degree world.
And still in the US we produce 16 tons of CO2 per person per year. You can’t see it, but it’s created an energy imbalance equivalent to exploding 400,000 Hiroshima bombs per day, 365 days per year. That’s how much extra energy the Earth is absorbing and it will take around 100,000 years for the extra CO2 we’ve already put into the atmosphere to cycle through Earth’s systems.
1
The earth is definitely getting warmer. Our main source of energy, the sun, has not altered its output for a long time. Perhaps the solution lies in geo engineering by enacting a screen between the sun and the earth which would reflect more of the incoming solar energy. Sounds fantastic, but might be possible. Another solution would be a huge drop in the earth’s population, but who wants that?
1
@JSK
Say we start spraying material into the atmosphere to reflect incoming solar energy. Do you think that India and Russia would agree to the same target temperature?
Hmmm.
Then there's what's been called global warming's evil twin, ocean acidification. Problem not solved.
Hmmm.
oh and how about the global shifts in rainfall patterns which models show associated with geo-engineering?
But I'm sure we'll end up doing that out of desperation.
3
Thank you for your reply, Eric. I really expect that geopolitical differences will deny any meaningful solutions, if indeed, such solutions are physically possible. It took an asteroid impact for we mammals to survive the dinosaur era.
1
@JSK
"Perhaps the solution lies in geo engineering by enacting a screen between the sun and the earth...."
...and Mexico will pay for it!
1
In 2014 two independent teams of scientists reported that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is likely irreversibly retreating. 3.3 meters of sea level rise equivalent of ice there is being destabilized by warming oceans and energy is going into the net melting of ice all over the planet.
The paleoclimate record indicates that increasing global temperature by just 1.5-2 degrees C above preindustrial temperature commits the system to an eventual 6-9m of sea level rise, a large fraction of which could arrive within the next 100 years.
Corals may not survive this century of warming and acidifying oceans, and droughts and floods linked to global warming—and conflict linked to those droughts—have already caused four countries to face famine.
Because of the decades to millennial long lag between a climate forcing and our feeling the full effect, due to the thermal inertia of the ocean and response time of the ice sheets, the effects we are feeling now are largely just the beginning of the result of emissions from the 20th century. And emissions have been increasing steadily for decades.
We are also seeing numerous amplifying feedbacks: loss of albedo (heat reflectivity) from ice melt, permafrost melt, methane release and massive wildfires; the Earth is starting to wrest any possible further human control of the climate away.
And yet most leaders are not only still acting as if this is not a planetary emergency, but some are acting as if there isn’t a problem at all.
10
Circa 450 BC an interlocutor in a Socratic dialogue complained that the relentless cutting of trees in the Adriatic in search of short term profit would create a longterm wasteland. People well knew this 2500 years ago, but kept on cutting down the trees, creating the barren landscapes of the Greek coast of today and, of course, causing the erosion of the fertile soils making the entire geographic area badlands. And so it goes today. We know fossil fuel reliance, cars, trucks, shipping and aircraft, extravagant use of electricity, production of concrete, factory farming of plants and animals, will destroy the environment and ruin the health of future generations. But heck, money can be made, politicians are corrupt, the public will always trade short term gain for long term pain (especially if it's mostly someone else who will bear it). So noises are made, promises issued, hands wrung but it remains business as usual, until, of course, it's way, way too late.
6
@Cephalus "cutting of trees in the Adriatic"
The tragedy of global warming, is we are the first generation that knows how to make energy sustainably.
In Pennsylvania during the early days of the US there were furnaces and forges powered by charcoal used to make the iron which built the East.
They’d cut down a lot of trees and burn them under ground with low oxygen to make charcoal. When Europeans first came to N America they said that a squirrel could go up a tree on the East Coast and stay in trees without touching ground all the way to the Mississippi River.
They cut down so many of these trees that a crisis developed and the Pennsylvania Government had to step in and tell people they couldn’t cut trees down on their own property. (think about that if you are against government intervention and suspicious of science ‘cause there are crises coming that will require much government intervention).
We were burning our way through whale oil when the discovery of fossil fuels saved the whales, and now we’re burning fossil fuels one million times faster than nature replenishes them which is heating the planet dangerously fast.
8
Oil is the way of life (sadly).
We are most powerful nation except in terms of our wisdom (Although many have awoken to humans negative impact on various biospheres).
1
A lot more young people will have to become much more aware and involved if we're even going to slow down this catastrophe. We can't wait for the government to lead us in the right direction. It's going to be mainly up to the younger generation to demand sensible and immediate action from their governments. We should all learn from 15 year old Greta Thunberg, who captured the world's attention at the UN Climate Summit in Poland, not only with her words but with her actions.
5
I would be more impressed if the report provided actual measurements of carbon in the environment. This analysis is based on models of carbon emissions. Models are simplistic and have error. This model ignores a huge sector of the economy ... the agriculture sector. Overall the model as described in the paper was pretty simplistic.
3
@Susan Hicks - where are you finding models to sniff at? It's not in this Times article, and in the linked "preliminary estimate published Tuesday" I look in the third paragraph. They say this, and "model" doesn't appear anywhere in the linked page.
"Based on emissions data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) for the first three quarters of the year, weekly EIA petroleum supply data, plus daily power generation and natural gas data from Genscape and Bloomberg, respectively, we estimate that energy-related CO2 emissions increased by 3.4% in 2018."
They're using data, and producing preliminary estimates, and they aren't writing about agriculture.
3
@b fagan
Good point. And models work. We design airplanes on computers, build them and they fly.
And climate models work too. See below.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/climate-model-projections-compared-to-observations/
1
@b fagan 30, 40 years ago the people working on climate were using early computer models. Their lack of 100% certainty was used by the people working to discredit climate research who were paid by you know who. HKere is a great history
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/08/01/magazine/climate-change-losing-earth.html?emc=edit_ma_20180803&nl=magazine&nlid=6791466520180803&te=1
1
Thanks to Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil, it appears that the Brazilian Amazon rain forest is headed for development and destruction; into the maw of civilization. the new president elect of Brazil has promised to turn the forces of progress loose on one of the last vast remaining carbon sinks on the earth. Meanwhile, our own government is on record as stating, "sustainability shall not stand in the way of growth." at the recent climate talks in Poland--an "insect apocalypse" is in progress--I am crushed by my species' short-sighted, greedy, doomed trajectory.
7
Sorry, folks, there is no way we can preserve our way of life, let alone allow the poor of the world to get anywhere to our standards of living, and simultaneously cut greenhouse gas emissions. The decline in US emissions the last few years was a one-off, due to gas replacing coal. We're getting to the end of that road.
7
@Rognvaldur Hannesson - one of the Norway oil holdouts? Emissions are going to increase globally, but how's standard of living in Germany, which has CO2 emissions now that are lower than in the late 1960s?
Norway's Statoil has renamed itself Equinor, which is neither here nor there, but is also getting into the offshore wind industry in a big way. Use your favorite search engine on "statoil bid us offshore wind" and see how European companies are building an international business with offshore wind - driving prices down on it while they go.
And the switch to gas (and offshoring lots of our manufacturing to China) did lower our emissions, but so has efficiency and renewables deployments. Multiple US states are over 20% power generation from renewables, and the over 30% club is growing.
Even Texas - our top consumers of electricity, got 18% of it all from wind and solar last year.
So the developing nations will consume less energy to attain good lifestyles than the US does, and could come in under European levels, too, since they're growing at a time when renewables are competitive on cost (and don't kill millions with pollution like in India and China now).
We're moving along. Stumbling, and here with cities, corporations and states doing what the federal government should be doing, but moving along.
2
@Rognvaldur Hannesson
This is about an energy transformation more than a lifestyle transformation. If we don't change our energy system, doing less laundry and not flying to see your grandkids in Denver isn't going to matter.
Job 1 is getting rid of an administration that halves the energy research budget instead of doubling it. We lost a lot of good stuff.
2
I know it's not cool to be pessimistic but I fear the battle against climate change is already lost. The right-wing takeover of the US is the final nail in the coffin. (Democratic control of the House can do nothing.) Whether the US economy is good or not, it will always be in the top three of largest emitters of CO2 and other GHG. It has forfeited any moral leadership that it might have had. Its policies are now deliberately targeted to increasing GHG.
Problem is, once on the books, policies - and the millions of regulations buried on page 1487 - take years to reverse, and the opposition to doing so will be fierce. The US is just too far gone. The cementheads are in charge and the private sector rights the laws. I don't see that changing for at least 30 years, but probably longer.
8
We should have listened to Jimmy Carter when he asked us to put on a sweater.
16
Let out : Per capita, Americans are the worst polluters of the developed world.
Look outside the US, Mr Plumer, on how to reduce it
1
As long as fossil fuels remain artificially "cheap" their use is inevitable. Thus, the economy is not on our side, but it could be recruited to our survival goals by internalizing the vast social costs of fossil fuels into their prices. A tax on the carbon content of these fuels would shift the economy to lower carbon products and processes. Refund all revenues to consumers so their budgets remain balanced and they won't riot, as in France. Two bills now in Congress are the perfect response to this grim news. Support the bipartisan Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act.
https://citizensclimatelobby.org/energy-innovation-and-carbon-dividend-act/
6
Amazing - I'm now seeing truck ads on TV, for trucks that cost over $40,000 - more than the cost of a solar photovoltaic system at my house that will actually pay for itself, rather than losing 1/3 of its value when it's driven off the car dealer's lot!
4
@paul
Yes and our government provides great tax incentive by allowing depreciation on what is considered a “farm vehicle”. Ever wonder why so many finance types are running around in humongous pick ups?
3
Trump is delivering for the Evangelicals. They promise Armageddon is coming, and, by golly, Mr. Trump with his environmental policies is bringing it on.
4
California wild fires?
They put more CO2 into the atmosphere than the man could even dream about.
3
@George Orwell
Incorrect. But amplifying feedbacks are a huge problem.
2
@George Orwell - again, george, I've advised you. If you want a posthumous career as a comedy writer, you really need better material. Something that's blatantly false and easily disproved isn't funny.
"U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke today announced that according to data analyzed by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the 2018 wildfire season in California is estimated to have released emissions equivalent to roughly 68 million tons of carbon dioxide. This number equates to about 15 percent of all California emissions."
https://www.doi.gov/pressreleases/new-analysis-shows-2018-california-wildfires-emitted-much-carbon-dioxide-entire-years
So, Mr. Orwell, if you want to keep trying with comedy in your afterlife, talk with Sam Clemens. He'd have been able to come up with funny just based on Zinke being the one announcing California fire emissions.
2
Do a web search: California has worse pollution levels in the usa
Shocking that the Trump EPA destruction agenda hasn't even fully kicked in yet, yet we are still careening toward environmental disaster out of control. Just wait until our air gets as dirty as Beijing's, or worse, so we can all see, taste and smell the results, watch more kids get asthma and more adults get cancer. After all, Trump wants us to beat China, right?
4
Fingers pointing at Trump and the EPA. He may not have many years left, but he shouldn't leave behind dirty air for Barron and the rest of the Americans to breathe. Or, his conscience is nonexistent and he doesn't care.
@Sq L CO2 is not "dirty".
@Sq L
his conscience is nonexistent and he doesn't care.
1
Perhaps it's time for all flights to end with the captain announcing the mileage for the trip so we can compare the fuel consumed by flying rather than other options. "This is your captain speaking, that short flight resulted in mileage of 10 miles per gallon per passenger."
2
Global warming - Great! think of all the money I will save in the winter. I'll just roast all summer......
I have two purely anecdotal observations from driving in rural PA:
1) Sometimes it feels like I am the last person who is in a regular car, not an SUV or pickup
2) There is an absolutely endless amount of trucks on the highway, almost every day, at all times
Sadly, the way policy is going, I am disappointed but not surprised at this result.
9
Democrats should all travel on electric vehicles for their campaigns. No private jets. Then they must convince us that jobs and growth are less important than the Paris Agreement and the targets that are based on long range forecasts that are wildly less reliable than next week's weather forecast.
4
@TL "Abstract
We present recent observed climate trends for carbon dioxide concentration, global mean air temperature, and global sea level, and we compare these trends to previous model projections as summarized in the 2001 assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The IPCC scenarios and projections start in the year 1990, which is also the base year of the Kyoto protocol, in which almost all industrialized nations accepted a binding commitment to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. The data available for the period since 1990 raise concerns that the climate system, in particular sea level, may be responding more quickly to climate change than our current generation of models indicates."
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/316/5825/709
6
@TL Do you understand the gravity and scope of human-induced climate change? It affects everyone regardless of political party or country. EVERYONE needs to do all that we can to mitigate climate change. The massive damage is and will be done, we just need to try to contain the severity of changes to come.
4
@TL. That old conservative chestnut that environmental quality is incompatible with economic growth is disproved every day. What you're advocating is not just jobs at any cost but production at any cost, with no responsibility or pricing for externalities. You would have loved the 1880s. Sorry you were born too late. Very sorry.
3
The article notes the sector by sector regulatory approach but makes no mention of the conclusion from this: a systemic climate policy is fundamental to bending the emissions curve.
In response to the Administration's claim that the "free market" has led to reduced emissions over the past decade, that is fine if you believe a massive financial crisis and deep recession makes for good climate policy.
I'm surprised that much climate reporting ignores the widespread debate on the carbon fee policy that rebates all revenues to every household.
The introduction of the bi-partisan Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act (HR 7173) in Congress fully captures this policy. The Republican wall of denial has been breached.
Canada's introduction of a nearly identical policy in April provides an opportunity to expand the policy abroad--an essential step to address the emissions juggernaut.
8
@Robert Archer Or to evaluate the cost benefit of your proposals. I want control of methane from animal wastes, not that expensive, creates electricity, reduces smells. Try that to start!!
@Robert Archer
This comment says what I want to say, so "ditto" what Robert Archer said.
@vulcanalex - evaluation of the Clean Power Plan actually results in cost savings to society. We should try that, too. Indiana and other states are replacing expensive coal plants with renewables and storage and efficiency to save money, too.
1
I would be very interested to see a climate focused analysis of the effects of purchasing consumer goods from local businesses versus ordering individual consumer goods one at a time from national distributors (eg Amazon).
4
Still has to ship to somewhere.
With Amazon lowering costs and creating large distribution centers, combined with “bus like” transportation for rural deliveries, I suspect the “next day delivery” carbon emissions are nearly zero.
1
@AB -- on a related note, I would like grocery stores to enhance their loyalty programs to enable customers to download their purchase history. Then some enterprising green techies would put together an app to calculate the carbon footprint of food purchases, providing additional feedback for making better dietary choices for the climate without the need for carbon labels (which would also be nice, but seems more complicated).
3
@Phil We don't have to wait for this. Want to dramatically lower your CO2 production via food? Become a vegetarian or better yet, vegan. There ya go, solved.
We need a second chart - one that shows the decline in co2 emissions that would have occurred had U.S. population remained flat.
If climate change is more than an existential question, then we need to challenge traditional notions of economic expansion linked to endless population growth.
9
I wish the great ocean liners would return! I would happily go slow and enjoy the adventure.
1
@nicole, according to UK environmentalist George Monbiot:
"Travelling to New York and back on the QEII uses 7.6 times as much carbon as making the same journey by plane." https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2006/dec/20/cruises.green
1
@BobMeinetz. In this article from 2006:
"Every passenger is responsible for 9.1 tonnes of emissions. Travelling to New York and back on the QEII, in other words, uses almost 7.6 times as much carbon as making the same journey by plane.”
"a cruiseliner such as Queen Mary 2 emits 0.43kg of CO2 per passenger mile, compared with 0.257kg for a long-haul flight."
One says it's 7 times, the other less than 2 times, depending on the measure. What none of the figures seem to include are all the services that are provided on the ship that each person would otherwise consume on land for all those days not spent travelling on the ship. Food, shelter, air conditioning and other energy, etc. Not saying cruise ships are more efficient, I have no idea but suspect they are not, just that it's hard to compare. Also, the plane is just transportation, the ship is an experience. In this discussion we shouldn't assume that the best environmental future means monastic isolation and denial. That isn't human. It just means that having fun should be more efficient.
1
It's the problem of the commons occurring on the largest scale.
So what to do?
A) reduce personal carbon footprint through the use of efficiency and renewable energy
B) trade in your gas guzzler for an electric car or plug-in hybrid
C) advocate and vote for politicians who understand the scope of the problem and have the courage to provide environmentally and economically (see France) appropriate solutions
D) Call out corporations to do their fair share and avoid products from those that don't
Answer: All of the above.
6
@Barrett NO to C, the rest are fine.
I'll be interested to see if any of the Democratic presidential candidates decides to run a virtual campaign, connecting with voters in Iowa and elsewhere via social media in real time, rather than flying. It could turn out to be more effective as well as lower carbon. That would be walking the walk.
3
I've been reading about global warming since I prepared to write my PhD thesis in 1988 on the subject of how government regulation could ward off global warming. I was naive. I really thought we would take action.
Now my reading of many scientific papers on what is happening tells me the perturbed Earth system is reacting. Positive feedbacks are turned on in the Arctic: dozens of observational studies show reduced albedo of the Arctic Ocean, accelerating permafrost melt across vast regions of Siberia, Alaska and Canada and release of a vast reservoir of carbon has initiated, accelerating emissions of methane and CO2 that will be so large as to overflow human emissions reductions. Except human emissions reductions have not even started. The global system is already flipping to a new equilibrium. The tipping point is here now. The recent calculations showing that we must not just reduce emissions, but drastically reduce them by 2030, and we are not doing so, is a clear indication that is is too late.
18
@Federalist
“A single chlorofluorocarbon factory can produce gases with a climate forcing that exceeds the forcing due to Earth orbital perturbations.” James Hansen, 2011 http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2011/20110505_CaseForYoungPeople.pdf
As weak as these “orbital perturbations” were, they caused huge changes in climate due to amplifying feedbacks like ice melt and release of CO2 from warming oceans and methane from permafrost.
From PNAS in 2014: “Using satellite measurements, this analysis directly quantifies how much the Arctic as viewed from space has darkened in response to the recent sea ice retreat. We find that this decline has caused 6.4 ± 0.9 W/m2 of radiative heating since 1979, considerably larger than expectations from models and recent less direct estimates. Averaged globally, this albedo change is equivalent to 25% of the direct forcing from CO2 during the past 30 y.” https://www.pnas.org/content/111/9/3322
As the other half of the surface area of Arctic sea ice largely goes away by mid-century, that amplifying feedback will increase substantially. And the loss of seasonal snow cover in the North adds a similar amplifying feedback.
Where are the brakes to stop this ball from rolling where we don’t want it to?
3
@Federalist
You can relax. It's a fake crisis:
Each of the following facts completely dispels the nonsense of global warming.
-Glaciers were Already Retreating Before 1900
-Ice ages have been coming and going for eons.
-The last 20 years have shown zero warming.
-Man produces less than 1/2 of 1 percent of C02 on the planet.
-It was warmer in the 15th century than it is now.
-The greatest warming in the 20th century was between 1935 and 1950.
-NASA confirms – Sea levels FALLING across the planet in 2016 and 2017.
-NASA Data: Earth Cooled by Half a Degree Celsius From '16-'18
-Scientists have been caught manipulating and hiding data.
-None, NONE, of their prior predictions have come true.
@Federalist Great point, so adapt to the changes.
We need drastic policy changes, but we also need drastic individual changes.
Specifically: less consumption, and less frivolous travel. Stop getting on planes.
7
Global aviation is in the neighborhood of of 2 - 3% of Carbon dioxide emissions produced. Agriculture and livestock are far greater contributing industries.
@Levon S, agriculture and livestock only recycle carbon: CO2 in air, to sugars in plants via photosynthesis; animals eat plants; animals die; animals rot or are eaten; CO2 returns to air - every decade or two.
Fossil fuel combustion is adding carbon to the air which has been sequestered underground for tens of millions of years, changing atmospheric carbon concentrations back to those of prehistoric times. Plants and animals alive now have nothing to do with it.
@BobMeinetz Moving the plants to the animals and the animals to the people certainly does have something to do with it. Raising more animals absolutely does. Refrigerating the increasing number of dead animals does. All of these things require fuel.
2
We need more safe, clean, carbon-free nuclear power. Given the location of existing power plants, consumers, and the distribution system which connects them, nuclear plants are virtually a drop-in replacement for coal-fired plants.
6
maybe part of the problem is almost 8 billion people on the planet who need to be fed, housed, clothed, etc...
24
much ado about nothing. Carbon emissions vary from year to year. Our trend has been overall down since around 2005. Overall, our emissions are on par with 1990 while the rest of world has gone of 60% or so. Just more fear mongering from the climate journalists -- I mean propagandists -- at the times. Just repeat to yourselves folks, weather, co2 emissions, just about everything you can think of varies from year to year. By the way, does the author know what the standard deviation is for annual CO2 emissions over the last 30-40 years? That might help put things in context.
@Ralphie
The journalists are not infallible, but why do you call them "propagandists"? And why do you say, "Just repeat to yourselves, folks...."? Why would we need to repeat to ourselves that "just about everything you can think of varies from year to year"? Sounds like, um, propaganda. Also irrelevant.
As for the question about standard deviation over the last 30-40 years, I would like to know what is intended here. Do you mean the standard deviation in each of 30-40 annual estimates of U.S. CO2 emissions? The systematics of CO2 emission estimates are pretty good, provided that a consistent methodology is used. Is the implication that the scientists who publish these figures are making claims beyond what the uncertainties in their data permit? That doesn't sound like what scientists do at all.
Anyhow, it is global CO2 emissions that are cooking our goose, and we have pretty good monthly data on atmospheric CO2. Unless the shutdown has affected the NOAA site, you can see a few years' worth of global data here:
https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/index.html
and the acceleration in global emissions here:
https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/gr.html
though the preliminary 2018 data are not yet included.
Have a look at a few of the other comments on this article and follow up on them to see just how dire the situation is.
8
@Ralphie Keeling Curve atmospheric CO2 1700-present https://scripps.ucsd.edu/programs/keelingcurve/wp-content/plugins/sio-bluemoon/graphs/co2_800k_zoom.png
1
@Brian Stewart I call them propagandists because they never question the data -- they're note takers. Never a skeptical note to be found in any climate article in the NYT. And I can say that with some authority as in one recent article I contacted the lead author of the cited scientific article --- found some mistakes they'd made -- which required them to write a correction. In the course of that discussion the lead author noted the Times writers had made several mistakes in their article about the conclusions of the scientific article -- all making the conclusions of the scientific article much more dire than the data warranted. The scientific article author asked the Times to correct their errors but they wouldn't do it. And the Times has never printed anything re the corrections to the original journal article -- which were pretty devastating to the results.
Now, how come I contacted the lead author -- because the NY Times article made no sense -- which I knew because I know the CC data pretty thoroughly.
But hey, what do I know? Except I do know that year to year variation means virtually nothing -- it's long term trends that count.
And while you're at it, explain the second attached graph if you can.
1
The real national emergency is climate change! The next president needs to declare that a national emergency.
17
Al Gore needs to run again.
9
“Fossil fuel emissions in the United States have fallen significantly in part because of a boom in cheap natural gas and renewable energy”
Why are people who don’t understand the fracking/methane connection writing on climate change issues?
“Fracking releases large amounts of natural gas – which consists of both CO2 and methane – directly into the atmosphere. In fact, fracking. wells leak 40 to 60 per cent more methane than conventional natural gas wells.3 This happens when water is forced down into a fracking. well in order to fracture the rock formations”
https://canadians.org/sites/default/files/publications/fracking-climate-change.pdf
Fracking is not a positive in the efforts to combat climate change.
12
Nobody said it was fab, Ed. Said it was an improvement.
1
@Ed Watters Sure some comes out with the fracking fluids, it can't be that much since someone would capture it.
@Ed Watters, more importantly: why are people who don't understand the renewable energy/natural gas connection writing on climate change issues?
Is this surprising? Everywhere are large new suvs, companies ready to offer consumer space flight, fracking across the country... the list goes on. Is this the behavior of people who are making changes or even care at all? It's not just prolifigate capitalism, but even progressives celebrate hundreds of millions being lifted out of poverty, yet they will be the nail in the coffin when their consumption approaches ours.
16
Best get your piece of the pie now.
'Mercia isn't going to change and neither is the collective globe.
We missed the cut off and our kids are doomed.
Be a good little consumer and enjoy the slide.
Put a fork in us. The era of the humans is about done.
We didn't even last as long as those big lizards.
So much for big brains...Stupid hairless apes.
8
The USA is the biggest consumer of spring and mineral bottled water in the world. The USA has 602 water bottling companies in the USA that brings in billions of dollars of revenue for the government. China also has water bottling companies and what does the USA and China have in common? Both nations consumers don't trust their local water supplies and that says a lot about the government agencies responsible for clean water. There's something wrong if people can't trust the water coming out of their taps. In Christchurch NZ we have a raw water supply monitored by the local government and have no chemicals in the water as it's so clean. We also have foreign companies wanting to bottle water here and most of us don't want that to happen as we want to preserve our own water supplies for future generations and don't want businesses mucking up or polluting our water supplies when they bottle water. Water wells dry up and as a commodity the supplies are as valuable as oil. In fact more valuable than oil as you can't drink oil and humans wouldn't survive a day without clean water.
19
@CK, Clean drinking water will be the new gold in the near future.
Actually it already is.
5
@CK I trust my tap water, yet my wife who also trusts it uses bottled water all the time.
1
Meanwhile, from James Hansen in 2012 ". . . our governments are forcing the public to subsidize fossil fuels by 400 to 500 billion dollars per year worldwide, thus encouraging extraction of every fossil fuel -- mountaintop removal, longwall mining, fracking, tar sands, tar shale, deep ocean Arctic drilling.
This path, if continued, guarantees that we will pass tipping points leading to ice sheet disintegration that will accelerate out of control of future generations." http://www.ted.com/talks/james_hansen_why_i_must_speak_out_about_climate_change/transcript?language=en
And Hansen again, from The Guardian in 2016
"There’s no argument about the fact that we will lose the coastal areas, now occupied by most of the large cities of the world. It’s only a question of how soon."
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/apr/12/climate-scientist-james-hansen-i-dont-think-im-an-alarmist
Just four years and a very different and disturbing message, we are making decisions about the future climate for millennia right now, decisions we will regret.
20
@Erik Frederiksen
We won't regret anything as long as we continue to enjoy our normal lives. It's our Grandkids who will pay the penalty for our indifference, and who cares about them?
4
@Erik Frederiksen - and Hansen again in 2015:
"Nuclear power paves the only viable path forward on climate change."
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/dec/03/nuclear-power-paves-the-only-viable-path-forward-on-climate-change
1
"renewable power did not expand fast enough to meet the extra demand." Windeurope.org has stated in WindEurope-Annual-Statistics-2017.pdf that in 2016 "Wind overtakes coal
as the 2nd largest form of power generation capacity" when describing total power generation capacity in the European Union. This fact helped me make the slogan: Dig Wind not Coal.
2
Let’s face it, Americans will say they care about the environment and worry about the longterm prospects of climate change and rising sea level. But ask an American to grade in their oversized SUV, van, or truck and get a vehicle that is likely to give them 50mpg or better, you will be met by a blank stare. Look at any car parking area, your street, and probably your own garage or driveway and say you can’t do more to reduce emissions. We can’t afford to way for President Trump, or the EPA, or the next IPCC report. Transportation is our biggest source of CO2 pollution and nearly every one of us can do something about that.
14
I always reserve more blame for the generals than the foot soldiers. It didn’t help when Obama’s all of-the-above policy sanctioned huge increases in domestic oil extraction which kept gas prices low.
3
@Ed Watters
I don’t know about you, but my vote never signed me up for life in a military hierarchy. One positive aspect of our consumerism is that individuals can and do make a difference. The only reason Ford can get away with abandoning the manufacture of small, energy-efficient vehicles is that Americans will continue to buy the guzzlers they produce.
4
Not what Obama’s energy plan did, Ed.
But I’m sure we all appreciate your helping to stick the planet with trump’s.
Bravo, sir. Bravo.
Our good friends, all fervent environmentalists, nonetheless fly frequently to distant exotic lands for vacations.
A strong economy doesn't matter a hoot if we destroy the planet, if our lives become dictated by the storms, fires and famine resulting in our excess consumption.
Even environmentalists have to sacrifice. No more long haul vacations. Limit air travel, use Skype for meetings, and don't shift the blame to everyone else. We affluent consumers are the problem.
18
I fly for pleasure too, but you are absolutely right. Airplanes are one of the worst carbon emitters. It makes no sense to diligently turn off lights if you're going to fly halfway around the world for fun. As a first step I try to be honest with myself. Secondly, my awareness does help me to cut back.
7
@BostonGail, I agree. We should all be aiming at a 5-ton life or lower -- a quarter of the current average carbon equivalent emissions, and air travel is a major component for many people. One issue is that not flying, at the margin, only saves the fuel required to fly you and your luggage to your destination; the plane will still fly on schedule until enough people stop flying the route to make that flight uneconomical. I wonder if we could push for "no-flight Sundays" as a way to cut down on emissions.
4
@BostonGail, Air travel is going to continue to increase in volume and sales. Airports are busy and ever expanding with new runways and terminals. Commercial flights are predicted to grow to record amounts in the upcoming several years. People love to go places for their social media accounts too. Look at me!!
3
USA needs to clean up it's act or they'll only have China and other polluted nations left to trade with. Why put all your eggs in one basket? According to this link, California has high pollution levels in the USA and they're supposedly Democrat voters!
https://www.guardian.com/cities/datablog/2017/feb/13/most-polluted-cities-world-listed-region
1
@CK That link goes to a 404, but I found the link you are referencing. You are being very misleading to say that California bad. The averages of the US and Canada are slightly below the averages of Europe. They are way below everyone else in the world except for NZ. The state of California is twice the size of NZ, so it is actually producing less per square mile.
2
@Teddi Do a web search of these words: California has worse pollution levels in the usa
@CK Why trade with anybody? We can and should produce all we require.
In addition to pushing for a Green New Deal in Congress, which will take at least two years to pass, those of us who care should start our own Green New Deal now. We need Friedman, Krugman, Bloomberg, Steyer, Sunrise, foundations, university endowments, environmental nonprofits to join together to set up a Green New Deal fund that will start the ball rolling. Even if only 3 percent of us are committed enough to fund it, and only give a fraction of our wealth (divested from fossil fuel companies) to it, we could quickly have a sizable pool of funds to start decarbonizing the economy.
1
Reducing Carbon Emission in the US will not hurt a booming economy
List of CO2 emissions, tons per capita
US 16. 5
Canada 15.1
France 4.6
UK 6.5
Germany 8.9
Sweden 4.5
Germany, per capita, is a more industrialized country than the US. And yet it emits half of the US
The first step towards a more responsible US environmental policy is not additional regulation, but to gradually increase the tax on gasoline to European Levels
Data
https://www.economicshelp.org/blog/10296/economics/top-co2-polluters-highest-per-capita/
18
@Woof Bangladesh - less than half a ton. Yet our collection emissions will sink around a third of that country over the next 1-300 years.
2
@Woof
A "Gradually increasing" gasoline tax will force people to, eventually, vote it out, buy electric cars - which will run on fossil fuels converted to electricity, or to simply ignore it. There are a lot of reasons to be skeptical that this would change behavior.
3
@Woof If you want a revolution try making fuel taxes like Europe, we won't even raise them for needed road and bridge repairs and improvements.
1
Only in the NYT world is solid US economic growth considered bad news.
3
@NYC Taxpayer, the anthropogenic changes to climate since 1850 will last at least 100,000 years.
You would trade the welfare of thousands of generations of your descendants (and the extinction of at least half of all species on Earth) for a good economy in 2019, would you?
2
In 30 years things will get INTERESTING. Generational momentum will result in a worldwide population collapse, at the same time that the petroleum supply runs out, at the same time that the wort effects of global warming hits>
This means potentially the world will be simultaneously full of elderly people dying because there's no young people to care for them, freezing due to a new ice age, and starving to death because without petroleum there isn't enough fertilizer, electricity and transportation to grow and transport food.
Good times!
On the other hand, at least tech gets more energy efficient every year whether people want it to or not...
1
@Darin Herrick "freezing due to a new ice age,"
There won't be another "ice age" while CO2 levels are at or above today's value
3
@Darin Herrick I hope to make it 30 years. Robot will take care of me, no ice age, and there will be plenty in the US for me. I might be incorrect, only time will tell.
My wife and I drive a Prius, but we have trouble being sanctimonious because we also fly quite a bit. Flyers are always desperate to get more space in the plane. They go first or business class if they can afford it, and they complain bitterly about narrow seats and short "pitch" between seats. The fact is that the less space you use in the tube the less the carbon footprint of your trip. This fact hardly ever gets mentioned in travel articles in this paper.
4
Estimates, estimates, estimates! Pesky little things.
Can we get some real facts ?
The real emergency is what we are doing to climate cycles: What are we doing? We have blown the cycle out of the water. So the cycle was doing 180 to 280 parts per million atmospheric CO2 by volume over about ten thousand years and we have done more change than that in a hundred years.
Keeling Curve atmospheric CO2 1700-present https://scripps.ucsd.edu/programs/keelingcurve/wp-content/plugins/sio-bluemoon/graphs/co2_800k_zoom.png
Graph of the last 1,700 years of global temperature https://nca2014.globalchange.gov/sites/report/files/images/web-large/Figure-5-hi.jpg
Graph of Arctic sea ice over the last 1,450 years http://static.skepticalscience.com/graphics/Kinnard_2011_sea_ice_med.jpg which doesn’t include the last decade, if you tried to put recent years on there it would blow off the bottom of the chart a long ways.
Retreat rate of Thwaites Glacier which can unzip the rest of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is here:
https://cloudfront.escholarship.org/dist/prd/content/qt0wz826xt/qt0wz826xt.pdf
About 14 km in 19 years in the main flow. Maybe 70 km until it gets deep and starts a rapid retreat.
8
I get the distinct impression that when guys like Trump were little, and told not to play with the dry-cleaning bags, they went ahead and did.
1
Must be something to do with an increasing population.
Also the purchasing of all of those big pick up trucks and large SUVs/vans that are constantly being advertised in America.
15
Thanks for your responsible critique of our current policy!!!
How much C02 is produced by newspapers? Cutting down, transporting, and processing trees. Plus the delivery of the newspapers - trucks and cars. And correspondents traveling the length and breadth of the globe. Seems like it would be sensible for newspapers to be shuttered- it would set a good example for the rest of us.
1
I have the numbers right here.
It is....lessee....0043% of what a weekend at Mar-A-Fathead costs.
Hey, do the one about Al Gore’s jet, wouldya? I love that one.
3
@Rob - and I supposed you typed your message onto a sheet of paper and we're all reading it after hurrying up to the newsboy on the corner who was yelling Extra! Extra!
The news industry has been shifting more and more to online delivery, like what you are already using.
4
and at the same time,. Americans are buying trucks and SUVs to use as cars, mainly for psychological reasons. it seems the segment responds to money issues such as the pump price of fuel and interest rates much more than to any other factors, so if gas gets cheaper, passenger vehicles get bigger. I wonder what a surcharge on SUVs would do, except make people mad?
8
Most global free trade agreements have conditions on joining such as getting down pollution emissions and the European Union won't be wanting to do trade deals with nations that don't have a plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions. So that probably leaves a limited mirky window, if you can see through it, of nations to trade with. Either that or hypocrisy will prevail and money from trade deals will do the talking and any clauses in trading nations aspirations will be ignored. Not much hope for the planet if the big consumers like China, India and USA don't act responsibly and try to clean up the planet and use green energy alternatives.
Lots of Research and Development in NZ is for green alternatives so we'll see who gets all the trade deals in the future and the citizens and tourists won't be breathing through masks to filter out pollution. Geeze! Your government has no insight into what the future holds for your nation and the health of your citizens. Without clean water and air there will be no life at all.
3
Even China is starting to clean up its act and do something about pollution as they realise how essential it is to have clean air for the health of the nation and water supply. India is the most polluted nation in the world according to the World Health Organisation and millions of citizens die annually from air pollution related illnesses. The worlds poorest nations have the worse levels of pollution so why would the USA want to be heading downwards.
2
The population is projected to double in China by 2060, this projection from the Chinese government. Meanwhile everywhere I look having a child is looked upon as a good achievement.
The single most destructive thing you can do to the environment is procreating.
6
@Paulie "Trends of China's population growth, 1950-2050 (UN, 2007) 30 According to the 2006 Revision of the United Nations World Population Prospects, it can be expected that population in China grow slowly -from 1.31 billion in 2005 to 1.46 billion in 2030. After 2030, the population is projected to decline to 1.41 billion in 2050, according to the medium variant projection."
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Trends-of-Chinas-population-growth-1950-2050-UN-2007-30-According-to-the-2006_fig3_259267076
4
Then maybe Trump et al shouldn’t be attacking PP, UNICEF, and others, huh?
@Paulie - where DO you get your numbers? Read the link Erik quoted from and also this, from three days ago:
" China's population is set to reach a peak of 1.442 billion in 2029 and start a long period of "unstoppable" decline in 2030, government scholars said in a research report published on Friday.
The world's most populous country must now draw up policies to try to cope with a declining labor force and a rapidly ageing population, according to the summary of the latest edition of the "Green Book of Population and Labor" published by the China Academy of Social Sciences (CASS)."
https://www.businessinsider.com/r-chinas-population-set-to-peak-at-144-billion-in-2029-government-report-2019-1
2
The White House would like to comment on its overall energy strategy but its busy declaring an emergency and designing a steel fence for the southern border in order to stop 10-25 potential terrorists from crossing in the next 12 months. Priorities!
1
A preliminary estimate reveals that the United States’ carbon dioxide emissions rose by 3.4 percent in 2018, the biggest increase in eight years. The findings underscore how the world’s second-largest emitter has all but abandoned efforts to mitigate the effects of a warming world.
This is what happens when a country elects a climate change denier as leader of their country. God Bless America . Maybe instead of talking about a stupid wall as a national emergency , the US should be discussing climate change and its impact on the USA and internationally. Keep in mind that your neighbors to the south and north are effected by your emissions.
2
@JH Mintz No this is what happens with a growing consuming economy. Look at where the increase was and it is easy to see.
We are dooming our children and making our only home uninhabitable. Stark, simple and quite true. All the hair-brained denial and propaganda in the world cannot make this un-true.
We CAN drastically reduce our carbon footprints, both personal and industrial. Yes, initially it will cost money but, in the long run, it will pay us all back in spades. I speak with great personal knowledge (unlike the narcissistic sociopath-in-chief).
I have been only marginally on “the grid” for the past 15 years. My home and businesses have used solar PV power generation, waste has been biologically recycled and transport has been via plug-in hybrid (with virtually no gasoline usage except for long trips, and then at over 65 mpg). I have not only made little negative impact upon my environment but have saved huge amounts of money in doing so.
There is no reason why almost everyone could not do this. We need competent, pro-active government that encourages such programs, not an Administration that denies science, fiscal and personal responsibility. We need a government that takes the point on this issue because it is the right thing to do, not because it is “politically expedient”. We need a government that champions our children and their futures, not one that destroys them.
No support for Trump - he will NEVER change; he will NEVER miraculously become human.
4
Actually, last winter was very cold and long so one would expect more energy use. But we can all do small things to preserve the planet.
Turn off unused lights and appliances. Turn the thermostat up/down. Eat less meat (beef)-- more veggies, beans, some fish. (Your health will be better!)
Wear your clothes (buy good classic things even second hand) wear until they wear out -- which could be forever.
Use as little plastic as possible. (I have no idea why people need to buy Tupperwear or plastic garbage bags REUSE.)
Yes cripple the consumer economy.
So far as air travel -- any fast boats to Europe? It can be fun! Guess what -- unfortunately sometimes one has to use air travel in Europe. Have a fuel efficient or electric car if possible.
Personal responsibility should have NOTHING to do with the law!!!
1
Diesel vehicles can be easily converted to run on recycled cooking oil from restaurants, etc.
Why aren't we doing this more?
There's a county in my state that converted all the county vehicles several years ago. (keeps sewers cleaner, too)
We need to stop thinking only of monumental tasks to control emissions & think about all the little things that can be done of local levels.
4
The quote from Mr. Houser is pertinent, but one has to wonder if this "decoupling" is possible without directly challenging corporate interests and their influence on our political systems.
6
A carbon fee is the sure-fire way to decouple the economy from fossil fuels. In other words, we can get energy from non-fossil fuel sources and if we make fossil fuels more expensive then we'll stop building them and instead use non-fossil sources.
Both houses of Congress introduced an excellent (and bipartisan!!!) revenue neutral carbon fee bill in 2018 that would grow the economy, protect the middle and lower classes, and drastically cut emissions (90% reduction in 30 years). If we work to tell our Members of Congress to pass this, we would be on track in dealing with climate change. The bill is called the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act and came about because the nonpartisan group Citizens' Climate Lobby has been working with Members of Congress for over 10 years on this topic, showing that both Republican and Democratic values align with this policy.
6
@Ebodnaruk A sure way to destroy our economy. That bill is just a tax on the poor and a wealth redistribution plan. I would get money back and perhaps a job running the system, but I am totally opposed to it.
"Nuclear energy is the only viable path forward on climate change." If it's not obvious now, it should be.
It wasn't me, it was distinguished climatologists James Hansen, Ken Caldeira, Kerry Emanuel, and Tom Wigley, who addressed those words to COP21 conference attendees in a letter written almost four years ago. They understand, like every reputable geophysicist/climatologist in the world, that "renewables" will never, ever, ever generate enough dispatchable, clean energy to stave off the worst effects of climate change.
The U.S., already the worst climate offender on a per-capita basis, only gets worse. Don't blame China, don't blame India - look in the mirror. Instead of closing the carbon-free nuclear plants that generate 20% of U.S. electricity, instead of expanding fracking and gas generation, we should be building more nuclear plants as fast as we possibly can. We must set an example, show the world is taking a viable path forward on climate change (if nothing else).
9
@BobMeinetz
Agree with the idea of more nuclear. But, I live in SC where we've recently had the SCANA/Santee Cooper/Westinghouse debacle. They worked on a massive nuclear plant & when it had lost billions & was still years from being finished, the inquiry found Westinghouse hadn't bothered to have engineers review the plans before they started work. And, that's just part of it.
Big business in this country is a mess & the fact that we've had 40 years of putting it on a pedestal means we haven't faced its problems. Even now in SC, the Westinghouse failures haven't gotten near the press coverage of the utilities & eviscerated regulatory agencies.
3
BobMeinetz,
First full scale Nuke plant was built in '56.
63yrs later and the US still doesn't know what to do with the waste that has a half life of over four billion years. The next largest fraction of material is unspent uranium 235 (U-235) and plutonium fuel with half lives of 700 million years and 24 thousand years respectively.
Going to store it in barrels in your children's back yard?
Yeah, how about in someone else's eh?!
2
@BobMeinetz - I think it's unfortunate that the climate scientists you mention, skilled in their field, make such a shortsighted statement about something that is outside of their fields of expertise.
Hansen's now in a misguided pressure group that spends some of its effort fighting against renewable generation rather than fighting against all fuels from carbon.
There are states that are putting in place supports to keep their current nuclear plants running - Illinois did and I've seen others do so as well. I'm in favor of that.
But "only viable path" is incorrect. Viable means it can be deployed at scale now, and is price-competitive when carbon emissions are priced in. Viable means we can dispose the waste. Viable - and this point is REALLY important, means we deploy energy and storage sources into every nation around the world, without fearing what happens if they (or groups in the country) decide to tinker with the fuel or residues.
Would you put nuclear plants in Somalia? Afghanistan? There's a list of nations where right now, I'd be reluctant to deploy nuclear plants. Even the ones that aren't commercially available now that "promise" they'll be better. Nuclear is expensive, too, while solar and wind and storage are all declining year over year in price.
So maybe nuclear. Keep existing well-run ones running, but until you tell me the location of five international sites for long-term waste disposal, nuclear isn't my first choice in most situations.
2
The notion that we can reduce C02 emissions and still allow millions of people can get in airplanes and fly all over the world is ludicrous. Opening with a picture of an airport makes that point as clearly as any text.
And yet we still believe that if you can afford to fly to Europe, you should be able to. That belief leads inevitably to an overheated planet.
The same holds true of our entire way of life, and our economy. We need to develop something that is comfortable yet requires far fewer inputs, and that can be exported to the rest of the world without spiking emissions.
Technologically speaking, we're making good progress, although we have a long way to go. Socially and economically, we're going nowhere. People I speak to still believe that they should be able to drive and fly wherever they want, and they bristle at the idea that anything should slow them down. They give lip service to the whole idea, as long as they don't have to sacrifice anything.
That isn't going to get the job done. Without a social change and an economy that supports it, emissions will continue to rise until the environmental and economic collapse occurs.
24
@mlbex
Exactly. This, not immigration, is an emergency. People must be told this. Ideally, we should have some form of rationing on air travel and on car travel not related to commuting for work. Luxury travel may not be one of the largest causes of carbon emissions, but it's a wholly unnecessary source.
6
@mlbex - You make many good points, but the narrative of sacrifice is a tricky one. I agree we should change our behavior, but because emissions are tied to fossil fuels and not energy use generally, it is possible to keep using energy while drastically cutting emissions. We need something like a carbon fee to do that, and because of a group called Citizens' Climate Lobby, some Repub & Dem members of Congress are working on it. Take a look at the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act which would cut emissions 90% within 30 years. If we can pass this, that will be by far the largest step taken by our country.
And as for airplanes, if we decarbonized the rest of the economy, we'd still be doing great if airplanes were the only use remaining for fossil fuels.
5
@Barbara, Adding a million or two immigrants to our country annually adds to this massive consumption. Yes, it does.
5
The U.S. could eliminate 100% of its carbon emissions and the effect on global warming would be minuscule .... even President Obama admitted that when he spoke of the U.S. providing leadership (and a lot of money) in the global effort to impact climate change. China and India are developing countries with millions of people living without electricity in their homes. The Paris Accord gave these countries until 2030 before their carbon emissions growth needed to turn the corner. They are still building coal plants. Their understandable argument is that like the U.S. and western Europe they deserve the same opportunity to boost economic development via power expansion. Germany gets kudos for being green but by eliminating nuclear after Fukushima they increased use of coal. Very few countries are meeting the emissions goals they committed to in Paris. The U.S. needs to keep moving the technology needle, but a narrow focus on an increase in U.S. CO2 emissions due to a stronger economy and colder winter is missing the bigger picture.
8
The US has contributed 27% of all CO2 emissions in the atmosphere today. If we went to 0 as you say, it would be all the difference. I think you meant if we kept emissions flat or reduced a lesser amount it wouldn't matter.
5
@Catherine
Great ideas for sitting around and doing nothing. Not sure what planet you intend to live on.
US is 2nd biggest emitter in the world with only 5% of population. Yes, it matters.
5
@steve Point taken. I should have stated that President Obama's Clean Power Plan would have had a negligible (essentially an immeasurable) impact.
We can stop this insanity if everyone reading this calls up their congresspeople and makes it known that climate change is a priority for them, and encourages everyone they know to do the same. The policy solutions are available, it's just that the fossil fuel industry has politicized the issue to the point where our representatives (particularly in red and purple states) need the political cover to act, and they are not hearing enough from their consituents about it. So let's help them out. Vocally thank representatives already calling for action, and let it be known to the rest that this is one of the main issues you will vote on in 2020. And then vote!
5
@LH Climate change is not a priority for most Americans and never will be ... what's in their wallets is a priority and always will be, and it will also decide who wins the 2020 presidential election.
1
@Aleister I don't disagree that it can be hard to find time and energy for activism when you're struggling financially! However I don't think that means a livable climate isn't a priority for most Americans. We tend to forget that climate change and economic inequality are often intimately linked, and that many of their solutions overlap. We just need to be sure our elected officials understand this too, and hold them accountable for championing solutions that will help with both.
So the lesson here for those of us in the northeast is that we need to freeze rather than use our oil and gas fired boilers in winter. We'll be cold, but at least the people in warmer areas of the country can rest assured that the evil residents of the northeast are being punished for contributing to climate change.
5
@paul. Either that or we can hop on our private jets (maybe borrow Al Gore’s) and fly south Sort of ironic that we have colder than usual winter weather when we are worried about warmer than usual weather.
4
@paul, the lesson for those in the Northeast: re-open Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant, yesterday.
The plant provided 60% of Vermont's electricity, and 15% of the electricity on the Northeast power grid, with zero carbon emissions.
If you can't use electricity to heat your homes (yet), at least stop burning gas piped in from Canada to be able to turn the lights on.
3
@paul
I love your false dichotomy. We either have to use fossil fuels or freeze to death. THERE ARE NO OTHER OPTIONS!
5
“The big takeaway for me is that we haven’t yet successfully decoupled U.S. emissions growth from economic growth,”
Until that happens (and there’s little sign on the horizon that it will), those who throw around the term “climate deniers” are reality deniers.
Hectoring people to change their ways won’t work.
2
"Some of that increase was weather-related: A relatively cold winter led to a spike in the use of oil and gas for heating in areas like New England."
This is a good example of the importance of a wide angle approach to carbon emissions. We mustn't become fixated on one issue, because there are many things needed to be done.
Heat pumps can heat homes with far less energy, and like refrigerators they run well on electricity. It is the same theory. A fluid with a much lower temperature phase transition is used to pull heat out of the ground in winter, or put it into the ground in the summer. The BTU's come from the ground, not from carbon, and the energy use is only to run the pump.
Then if the electricity is renewable or at least low carbon, we have moved a long way, using far less energy AND getting it with less carbon.
The same is true if we move to more use of rail instead of trucking and airplanes. In some places of greater population density, it would also be faster than getting stuff through traffic from airports or via highway. This is not a step down in transportation quality.
We also need to reduce the turbulence of our manufacturing. Sending parts across continents or oceans for assembly is not energy efficient. A well known example is fish from the Irish Sea, sent to China to be cleaned, then brought back to Ireland and Britain for sale. From an energy point of view, it is crazy. So change the cost calculation to stop it.
11
"...as the United States economy grew at a strong pace last year, emissions from factories, planes and trucks soared. And there are few policies in place to clean those sectors up"
I thought we were capitalists here. Free market heroes proving their nobility and honor by running businesses as they should be run, far from corruption and criminal taint.
Yes?
I mean, this is America.
So what part of The Capitalists' Guide to the Free Market World says corporations get to use up massive public resources, inflict untold (yet, oddly, measurable) damage on society and the globe, profit beyond measure from these activities, and pay no price, suffer no consequence?
This does not sound like business. This sounds like criminal activity. And although we all know in our bones that corporations are people, there are other people who should personally pay this price, face the consequence, of this immoral, very unbusinesslike, behavior.
Despite the fact we're talking business here, the punishment cannot be in dollars only. We need them to in other valuable resources, like freedom and time.
6
Every thing we do, including breathing, has an effect on the unfolding universe, at some level. When you turn on that light you increase carbon emission. When you shut it off you stop those emission. Look around. Are their light on that don’t need to be on? All our acts has a consequence for the “well being” of the planet that is not yours or mine. Realize you participate in its “health”. You can do much better. You want to do better but there is a disconnect between what you do and the negative outcomes you generate. It is beneficial to all life to raise your consciousness and and take pride in being able to do something consequential, beneficial. Get those solar panels if you can. Make sure the planet is less destroyed because you did what you could each day to stop the death of this magnificent astronomical object, “the only one known to harbor life”.
48
@Bill Sr
Individual actions are not enough. We need major policy changes.
14
@Bill, when electricity is generated with nuclear energy, you can turn that light on and off as much as you like. You can heat your home, power your electric car, day or night, windy or calm, without an ounce of carbon emissions emitted to the atmosphere.
Throw solar panels in the trash - the minor contribution they might be making during the day, sometimes, is only an excuse to build more natural gas generation. Solar and wind energy, unable to provide energy on demand, are only taking us backwards.
3
@Bill Sr
The time you take to get one person registered to vote might be a better use of your time than shutting off a thousand lights. We need infrastructure jobs through the country manufacturing solar panels and windmills and we need government-initiated jobs in the rural South installing 50 million solar panels. Those actions will never be implemented by Republicans.
9
So tragic that we buy present comforts and indulgences at a huge cost to the future. That future isn't far away any more; in fact, as the science of attribution gets better, we can see that we are already experiencing the weather weirding that we were warned about in the 1970s and 1980s. The endless repetition of lies and misdirection along with a new trend in thinking lies are equivalent to the truth is running up against reality:
The planet has the only seat at the table, and it bats 1000.
Meanwhile, nothing short of a complete reorganization of the way we share and exploit will do. It's sad: too many people think working together to benefit the community of humanity is evil. Propaganda is dangerous to children and other living things.
If we don't get our act together, and stop wasting and exploiting with an expanding population, expanding appetites, and a finite planet, the planet itself will find ways to bring it home to its apex predator that there are limits.
(And don't think life in space or on Mars is even possible as things are now, let alone that the bill is huge: $billions per person. Space is not hospitable, but it is possible to return our own planet to hospitality if we learn to live sustainably. And by sustainably, I don't mean fashionable fads, but real evaluation of how to live a valuable life without so much 2D passive entertainment, whizzbang, sensationalism, envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness.)
9
@Susan Anderson
Oh no, this is not about "comfort and indulgences". Maybe more undertsandable if it was.
This is about money, about profit for people mostly so rich they wouldn't notice if they lost the whole bundle.
We can have light or heat or production without tapping out every oil well and coal mine. But there would be less profit.
And, really, what's the point of living if we can't scarf up all the cash we can imagine? I'm sure many consider this a very good investment.
3
The root cause of all global environmental problems including carbon emissions is overpopulation, but there is no leadership to address it. As the population increases from 7.6 to some 10 billion carbon-generating humans this century, the industrial activities necessary to support it will overwhelm any beneficial effects of increased per capita energy efficiency or other measures currently proposed. Humans have chosen quantity over quality; the inevitable results are just emerging.
22
@RC China, India and most nations of the Middle East continue to churn out population at record rates. These people often use pollution generating cars without emission controls, as well as coal to heat and produce electricity. Where is the outrage? Where is their responsibility for climate change emissions? Easy to blame the U.S., as usual. Look to 3rd world nations for the real causes of increasing emissions.
5
@RC - The easiest path to the reduction of carbon emissions, birth control.
4
@RC
Thank you so much. The human species has built-in programming and cultural programming to keep the babymaking machinery turned on.
When you tell humans it's not wise to make new babies, they freak out and become irrational, defensive, insane.
However, we must educate the entire world about population overshoot and anthropogenic mass extinction, while making vasectomies, contraceptives and abortions universally free and safe.
We should reward people for NOT reproducing.
Check out the anti-natalism movement, especially the books Better Never to Have Been, and The Human Predicament.
3
If a growing US economy caused the "surge" in carbon emissions, the solution is obvious - bring back Obama.
Obama knows how to cause low economic growth and proved it during his eight divisive years as President.
Since bringing back Obama is not possible, vote Democrat in 2020 for lower economic growth and lower emissions.
9
@James Stewart . Really, that's the best you could do? Obviously sarcasm not your strong suit. I really don't understand why folks on the right don't see that the immediate gratification of allowing industry to do whatever it wants, in the name of economic growth, does not serve us in the long run. Industry has zero loyalty to the people....unless you are a shareholder. All of that money will only help them buy bunkers and gas masks in the future, but I guess that's the kind of world that they prefer. The current economic growth was started during the Obama administration, while emissions were declining. This is the most divisive administration in history... Irresponsible and the ugliest aspect of we Americans for the world to see.
4
Fossil fuels gave us the modern world. They were the savings account that gathered interest for millions of years. They gave us the breathing room to learn how to do more with less stuff and even with less energy. They became the most destructive, addictive chemicals, but now we have the know how that can help us through withdrawal. It will be easier if there are fewer than 6 billion of us, rather than the current path to 10 billion. How many jobs in Southern states will be created by the production and installation of 50 million solar panels? We already have electric cars run by rooftop solar panels which also run, through the battery in the garage, all the home's air conditioning. Make air travel more expensive. Make gasoline, but not crude oil, more expensive.
5
Burning fossil fuels releases pollutants into the air, mainly Carbon Dioxide, Sulfur Dioxide, Methane and Nitrous Oxide.
I grew up in the Pittsburg, PA area during the 1950’s and 1960’s. Far more pollution went into the atmosphere (from eight-cylinder cars, coal fired electrical generation, home heating with coal/diesel, steel, and other manufacturing) then/than today.
The winters were very cold. Cold enough for Ice Hockey on ponds and lakes that froze over for weeks.
3
Double the price of gas at the pump, add on eco fees to airline tickets, give Cortez bragging rights if it makes a difference, especially without other countries doing the same.
6
Gee, I wonder if closing all of those non-CO2 emitting nuclear plants in the last few years might have something to do with the increase
12
Recently I saw publicized the coming of an enormous Eco-friendly electric cruise ship that would save the world with reduced emissions. Never mind all the gas burning planes, buses and shuttles needed to haul all the human contents to and from fill it and their emissions. Likewise at every port along the way disseminating its human cargo out into the countryside all in the noble quest of tasting that perfect glass of wine. The environment just has to understand that it's not humans' first priority once it's tasted the drink it has to offer.
7
@John Doe.....gotcha.....paradoxically, they are building natural gas powered cruise ships in Europe; but not jet plane engines unfortunately.
So the big take aways are that we need a major recession. Now we see the wisdom of the Obama economy, starving populations help mankind.
That or more global warming since warmer winters help reduce carbon emmissions. Who'd have thought that warming would have its benefits? Oh yea, everyone above the 40th parallel. Well time to hop in my climate improver and hit the highway.
7
Fortunately, Obama economic policies saved us from the Great Recession of W and Cheney (“Deficits don’t matter”)
9
@Warm Me Up - I have even better idea for you, bring back George W. Bush and the Great Recession.
1
Wait, I thought fossil fuel divestment was going to solve everything.
5
@Steve. Never heard that. It was the step in the right direction though. Hate to bust your bubble but there is no magic bullet. It's an ongoing process change.
1
Watch the Netflix show “Travelers” about people sent back from the future to try and change mistakes made now. The series ends with an explicit warning on climate change and nuclear apocalypse. The future predicted in this show is bleak where our names our numbers, food is scarce, the earth is in a nuclear winter. Our scientists tell us we’re on this path, it’s past due time for us to listen and be scared. If we are to save our lives on this planet we need to wake up.
3
@ScottC SOYLENT GREEN did the same thing in May of 1973. Scenario never happened; nor will fantasy interventions...unless these 'people' are going to radically reduce the exploding population. Will the nukes be set up at the end of the season?
3
@Cali Sol - there is a splinter group who set off nuclear bombs to lower the population. This is what one would surmise that causes the nuclear winter. The evidence of climate change is everywhere, denial is a financial decision.
2
@ScottC Evidence of Climate Change is everywhere??? Outside it is 21 degrees and snowing; just like it was for the last 40 years. Weather changes, climate stays the same....but it got cold before Thanksgiving so you could say that despite the increase in CO2 emissions it's now getting warmer; or is it? I do believe in tides, time and seasons. In 24 hrs. the time will be same as it is now....change but no change.
1
People have been saying for years that we can, and should, grow, grow, grow the economy; and that, by virtue of technological innovation, this needn’t mean exacerbating planetary wreckage due to increasingly extreme weather (due to global climate change).
This has been the liberal, relatively progressive, stance.
There’s such a thing as “too little too late.” There’s also such a thing as “cutting it too fine.”
We’re cutting it too fine and are, as a result, looking at too little too late.
This is by far the most important issue we’re facing.
I believe Trump is twiddling his thumbs, not because he truly believes his own statements denying that it’s a serious problem, but because he believes that the days of true national emergency are fast approaching, and that democracy is unlikely to survive them. He hopes to hasten such while still in office.
3
While the environment is on its knee Trump is encouraging the rollback of many protective measures passed in the past years.
When he would eventually realize that there are no walls to contain the pollution it will be too late.
4
Isn’t the internet powered by electricity — generated by coal fired plants?
Stop typing on the keyboard, web surfing, storing electronic pictures, Amazoning!
As internet usuage increases, so does carbon emissions.
4
Greenhouse gas emissions are destroying the earth’s ecosystems and all we hear and read about is Captain Chaos’ latest excursion into the depths of his psychosis. We have a very small window of opportunity to make the world’s climate crisis the number one campaign issue in the 2020 election.
Please, urge your representatives to support the Green New Deal. Let them know that we’re running out of time.
12
@Jim
Actually, Jim, the additional CO2 we are adding to the atmosphere has helped green the planet. Plant mass has increased by from 25% - 50% over the last several decades. That is a massive increase in vegetation!
2
@jaco
That is one of the denier myths that is both false and misleading. The proper focus is temperature. If you liked scuba diving, the carbon dioxide absorbed by the ocean may be the biggest tragedy.
1
Ever have a cell phone with an older battery that loses charge in about 12 hours? It's a pain, constantly needing an outlet to top off the charge. Likewise electric cars and trucks. As their range extends to 200 miles and more, the need to hook them up to their charge stations for hours a day is now the main barrier to market. Filling the gas tank takes less time than the rest room stop that oftens happens at the same time.
The solution, Elon, which could easily start with trucks and busses, is to standardize the battery packs and make them exchangeable, like the propane tank on my gas grill. I don't need the exact tank that came with my grill. I exchange it at the home center or convenience store and just pay for the fuel. Since it is much better to slow-charge such batteries, put charging racks at fuel stations with a cart designed to remove the emptied pack from the vehicle and insert it into the rack. Then move a fully charged pack to the vehicle. The charge rack will calculate charge based on how much charge is left in the returned pack, and bill for the difference. Large vehicles could use 2 or more packs, like the 2 diesel tanks on many 18-wheelers. Robo-carts could do the whole process while I get my coffee inside. Happy New Year, Elon.
13
@Allfolks Equal Very good idea, but still a very small part of the overall solution. The electricity going into the power packs needs to be produced from carbon-free sources and transmitted through rebuilt electric grids. We should be doing all of this.
4
We're cooked.
Looking to Washington is a fool's errand. When in control, the Democrats will push for lower emissions by increasing regulations and then, once in power, the Republicans will roll them all back. Of course, we could stop electing Republicans as a solution, but barring that ever becoming a successful strategy, we could just all stop having babies. Fewer people leads to lower consumption.
Who ever thought it would come to this?
9
@Tom Q "Who ever thought it would come to this?" I sure did. I was 13 years-old when I saw a guy haul off and sock another guy at the gas pumps during the Arab Oil Embargo of 1973. I realized in that moment that we are competitive animals who only cooperate when things are going good. The first indication of shortage . . . we revert back to chaotic immediate competitive hooting and hollering swinging in the trees. Good Luck, Planet.
8
It’s been nearly 30 years since the first report by the IPCC. Nearly 30 years during which we could not plead ignorance yet our emissions globally have increased 60 percent since then.
If I was young I’d be really angry.
11
The sad thing is, the entire human grid is built on fossil fuels, and not just for energy.
We're a population overshoot. It happens when any organism finds/creates enough food and other necessities to reproduce beyond carrying capacity in ways that destroy its habitat zone.
The use of petroleum spurred the rise of the industrial era which enables us to live our sumptuous lives and breed like rabbits.
However, our grid, which can never be made "green" enough no matter what technoutopian fix is tried, is killing the entire biosphere.
At the very least, we could stop using polluting toys like leaf blowers, jet skis, weed whackers, ORVs, boats, etc. We managed to survive with brooms, rakes, canoes, bicycles, swimming before the rise of pollution machines. That won't save the biosphere, but it lowers the personal emissions we create.
14
@Steve Davies While you were posting the world's population increased by 1,000 people who will be expelling even more CO2. The world's population is expected to double in 10 years; still think those carbon caps are effective?
6
Sure, increase tax’s, cut consumerism and force more manufacturing out of the country in search of less regulated countries. It will be much better for the planet when we are all poor and India and China are manufacturing everything
8
@Born In The Bronx
Exactly! If we really want to reduce emissions we need democrats in power to kill the economy.
3
@Born In The Bronx Nobody wins at this. We're all on the same lifeboat. You want to just eat all the rations now & let others worry about how to stay alive.
2
@Born In The Bronx
No, develop robust and sustainable infrastructure that is much less reliant on fossil fuels to make and transport manufactured goods, and reduce the carbon footprint of transportation. Incentivize domestic production through tax cuts and regulations that discourage offshoring production to countries that don’t deal with polluting emissions.
4
Instead of declaring a national emergency to build the wall, Trump should declare one to stop global warming by getting bipartisan support to spend 5 billion dollars to save life on earth. While he will never do this, this contrast of 2 options show how misguided Trump is leading this country. Imagine all the wasted dollars spent and carbon emissions added that building a wall will cause. All to fulfill a campaign slogan for his base except for the fact that Mexico is not paying for it, so it is a broken promise already that we, the U.S. taxpayers, are paying for. Just another one of Trump’s scams! How outrageous!
25
Greenhouse gas emissions are a symptom like many others and it is futile to try and treat the symptom while ignoring the cause. What good will it do to try to reduce greenhouse gasses by 15% at enormous cost while at the sase time the world population increases 20%?
We do not in fact have too many factories and generators that pollute, we have too much and too many of everything. Instead of throwing huge sums of money at this problem we need instead to throw at it huge sums of will.
The real cause of our most serious problems is over population. There are way to many of us now and a whole lot more on the way. Instead of being the leaders in the world on controlling emissions we ned to be the leaders in bringing population under control.
Poor areas should receive free birth control pills. Foreign aid should be tied to family planning. Every teacher in the world should be obliged to tell the kids that small families are friends of the earth. If we don't handle this Mother Nature will handle it in her own cruel way.
Religious people often say, "God will provide." And, He has. He has given us the brains to save ourselves.
27
@Michael Greenwald sorry, capitalism, the one true religion, demands constant growth. We're toast.
6
@Michael Greenwald - these poor people use only a fraction of the fossil fuels burned by people in the United States, the most wasteful nation on Earth.
1
@Anthony Flack While it is true the developed nations are polluting the most it is also true they are the only ones doing anything about it. On the day of the last Paris accord, Thailand announced the construction of two new coal generators. Greenhouse gas emissions is in fact a subject of the better-off, not anyone else. Every person borne helps pollute the world a little bit and they all add up.
1
"... emissions from the nation’s industrial sectors — including steel, cement, chemicals and refineries — increased by 5.7 percent."
Steel requires the addition of carbon (industrial coke) to the molten iron to form the Fe*C*X alloys that are steel, so CO2 is a necessary byproduct of the process. Likewise, cement requires heat to drive CO2 from CaCO3 to form the CaO that is our just-add-water cement (1/3 of concrete). But, and here is the key issue, neither requires that most of that heat comes from fossil fuel. Electricity can be used instead, from the mining and shipping to the heating of the iron or limestone ore (with just enough carbon added to make steel as needed). Moving these industries to an electrical power base would vastly reduce carbon emissions and result in many cost reductions through improved process control.
Incentivise such mills to surround themselves with wind and solar sources, and other renewable sources. Incentivise data centers too. By incentivising homes and buildings to move to electrical heating and AC (heat pumps), we can likewise reduce those sources of CO2 and other pollutants. The future? It's Electric!
4
@Allfolks Equal Having grown up in the Lehigh Valley of Penna., I was surrounded by cement plants to the north and the enormous Bethlehem steel plant to the south. Neither is 'moveable'; both are site specific, cement plants require limestone quarries and steel plants water and electricity for speciality steels.
Wind and solar are intermittent sources of electricity; cement plants are demand actuated, steel plants run continuously; both prefer hydropower because it is inexpensive and available 24/7, wind/solar aren't.
3
@Cali Sol
Still one could pump water up to the top of the hill using solar/wind power by day and let the water power fuel the generators at nite?
It's not the economy that caused this. It is a direct result of the Rump administration's policies. Last year’s 3.4% jump in emissions is the largest since 2010 recession and second largest gain in more than two decades.
1
Quality of life in the U.S. would increase dramatically if we could limit the air and noise pollution caused by big rig, 18-wheel trucks. Interstate highways cut through our cities and residential neighborhoods and our government agencies refuse to shield citizens from the damage these trucks inflict. If anything, departments of transport, are designed to serve the trucking industry at the people's expense. Ever try to get a noise barrier for your neighborhood? All the rules, federal and state, are written so that the answer is always no. The technology exists to reduce the lethal diesel fumes, particulates and carbon emissions but the corporations involved in trucking value money over the common good. See Lipton, Eric (2018, Feb. 15) "How $225,000 Can Help Secure a Pollution Loophole at Trumps's EPA", New York Times. Cracking down on this outlaw industry would produce major benefits for everybody.
3
Trump Administration confused. Thought should increase emissions 50% by 2020 not cut. Figure the 1% can explore Mars potential real estate if Earth becomes unusable. No problem. We go the money............
2
Reducing carbon emissions is not rocket science. All of the necessary technology has already been developed. What is missing is the courage to implement change. For example, we could legislate that every household with two cars must have one all electric car. We could require commercial buildings to have the same energy standards as residential buildings. We could upgrade high voltage transmission lines to wheel renewable power anywhere it was needed and we could build modular nuclear power plants to fill in the gap where renewables couldn't meet demand.
All of this would create new jobs and retire other jobs. This has happened before. We could offer no cost job training to affected workers seeking new careers.
Imagine a President who, in his inaugural address, did not soft pedal the implications of climate change but instead acknowledged the peril of continued carbon emissions, spelled out a plan to get us to a renewable economy and challenged every sector in the economy to meet national emission targets, even at the citizen level.
I suspect after the initial "shock" Americans would wake up the next day and meet the challenge head on with grit, innovation and spirit. We are that kind of people.
5
Yes, because every good thing man has done has come from government regulations. Nothing like the fear of fines and jail time to fix a problem. Just look at the Drug War and Prohibition. Shining examples of government improving lives.
1
I assume you like the air bags in your car? The safe medicines you take? What used to be good standards for cleaner air and water?
1
@Robert Migliori
All of us and the Times should remember that many other countries in the world are trying to catch up with us in CO2 emissions. Do not buy goods made in China nor food made with palm kernel oil ( rain forest being burned!). Clearly a slower economy means lower emissions.
2
Of course they went up, the economy is much better and people have jobs so they are driving, using things. In addition some manufacturing is returning to the US or expanding here rather than in some other country. This means some of our increase is offset by their either decrease or less increase. And here since we control traditional pollution better than most that also is reduced. Forget the Paris Accords, they are worthless.
11
@vulcanalex
You could not be more correct. Thank you.
4
Cheap gas = bigger cars that are less fuel efficient. The average person doesn't care about driving a fuel efficienct car today.
6
@Greg Correct. Car companies are eking out fuel efficiencies in their smaller cars to help offset higher emissions in trucks and SUV's which are their best sellers. And while electric cars do reduce highway pollution, it takes considerable energy to produce them - not to mention consideration of the power source when those cars are being recharged.
1
I cannot believe “beautiful clean coal” didn’t help on our carbon footprint. Shocking.
7
The US is a disgrace. Time this country got its act together. No other country has the financial means to transform itself. Green new deal or howsoever you do it, cut the carbon.
7
“Some of that increase was weather-related: A relatively cold winter led to a spike in the use of oil and gas for heating in areas like New England.“
Hey Northern Yankees and Hardy New England Democrats —— put on a warm sweater and stocking hat. Reduce you green house gases. Show us how it’s done.
2
For those commenting on the need for individual actions: we’ve done all those. There are structural changes needed to the economy for our household to go further.
6
Control over greenhouse gas emissions will not occur until those who hold political power in this world become convinced of the fact that their own grandchildren and great-grandchildren may well to be among the generation that suffers the commencing agony of human extinction, if it is not controlled. Let us hope that it is not already too late. Personally I am hoping, much as I love children, that I have no great-grandchildren. I dread the environment that they might well have to suffer. There will be nowhere to hide.
6
This is a sad truth. There are many more effects of climate change, however, which we may experience far before the generation of your great-grandchildren. Climate change is a public health crisis. The elderly are more prone to heat-related deaths as well as disease contraction — many areas in the US are already seeing extreme heat waves, and the rise and spread of pathogen populations is undeniable. In the next ten to twenty years (well within the lifespan of most people reading The Times) the increase of mortality related to climate will be undeniable as well. We should be prepared, and frankly a little frightened, for the impacts climate change will have on our lives *now* if nothing changes.
We are paying today for our ignorant and mule like refusal to recognize that in fact, nuclear power generation , while capital intensive to build, lasts almost a century, and emits not a mole of carbon pollution, once the cement on a new plant has dried. Back in the 1970's, when various groups fought for the end of all nuclear energy, it looked as though America and the world were running out of "stuff to burn". We now know this is what oil industry and producing nations hoped for-they get over 10 or 20 times more money for their rat poison.
Had we continued the construction of nuclear plants instead of paying ever more to burn even wood chips-, we could use these plants to produce H2 and run gasoline cars on hydrogen , sell cheap hydrogen to people to run electric conversion systems like Tesla's "Wall", and leave oil and gas in the ground.
Instead-the same people who wanted to deny us clean nuclear,(almost all Democrats and left wing!) power. Virtually no one, outside Russia's Chernobyl has died due to a meltdown and subsequent fire with radiation release. That's one accident that casued human deaths. Nuclear is statistically safer then solar power and, until solar is over 30% efficient, it still cannot quite replace nuclear, even with a huge storage system. We need nukes-they work very well and are safer than using and drilling for hydrocarbon fuels.
4
@meloop Good points but you forget some of the issues, like spent fuel, cooling methods, etc. And they are not "safer" either. Someone has to mine the various things, build the plants and operate them as well.
5
You mean to tell me climate change and insane amounts of CO2 in the air isn’t a Chinese hoax?!
What’s next? You’re gonna tell me Mexico isn’t going to pay for the “big, beautiful wall?!”
Oh, and I just wanted to remind people that steel slats are stronger than concrete!
5
Elsewhere in this paper is an editorial esposing continued trade with China to help grow their middle class and keep our economy humming.
Does the times want economic growth or co2 reduction?
My problem with climate "fixes" is using your own measures they don't work without seriously lowering of the standard of living in advanced economies. I live in an advanced economy. It also assuming people in China India Indonesia and any populous growing economy will voluntarily stop developing.
Even if we all went along with the reduction in standard of living it would require unprecedent international control of the worlds economy without corruption and with some competency.
No one wants population control.
It appears that to avoid conflict over limited resources and lessen global inequality we need to fight climate change. I'd rather fight to keep my excess.
5
@Brian What benefit to US citizens would growing the middle class in China. That would be bad for us, not good. Growing our middle class would be good for us, do that by returning jobs from around the world, especially our somewhat enemy China.
1
What percentage of the total carbon emissions is assigned to cars and trucks?
3
The 11-percent reduction since 2005 is exactly the result of government regulation and economic stimuli for energy efficiency. The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, combined with ARRA - these public initiatives are the reason for decreased emissions.
3
A sure sign of full employment and economic prosperity. When the recession comes most Times readers will have double reason to celebrate. Trump will be weakened and carbon emissions will be down.
6
@Rick Sure celebrate all those who lose their jobs, the increase in government spending, and many other bad things. Fortunately that probably won't happen, your recession needs more than the media encouraging it. How selfish, you want the masses to suffer due to your desires.
2
@vulcanalex I think you missed the sarcasm.
All of you climate hawk (including me): Stop driving minivans and SUV's and start driving compact cars. No more vacations to Myanmar. Turn that thermostat down, put on the cashmere sweaters, and complain about excessive heat and air conditioning in public buildings.
Go vegetarian or vegan if you can. At least cut down on meat, especially beef. Yes, that makes a huge difference--almost as much as fuel use. Don't but palm oil.
We can make a difference.
And vote Democrat.
11
@dr. c.c. Thanks but no thanks. I like my steaks medium rare.
3
@dr. c.c. Not enough. Don't drive at all, use public transit only. Don't go on any vacations, stay home and spend the savings on your solar panels. Don't use any air conditioning at your home. Turn off all lights when you are not needing it and give up TV.
5
Yes. The economy is doing better, houses being built, and this takes energy. Compe our emissions to China. We enjoy clean air and water due to 70s regulations.
Sorry folks, solar won't do it.
We can reduce by
1 More efficient cars. 60 to 100 mpg is possible
2 Public transportation from suburbs to work areas
3 Geothermal heat cooling
No major change will occur until we have a new source of power.
Conserve for now is best.
6
People just don't seem to care. I drove my the local school at 2:30 pm the other day and parents are lined up waiting to pick up their kids, idling their SUV's. Of all people, one would think these young parents would be the most incentivized to reduce their carbon footprint. And friends my age have second homes up here, sitting empty 80% of the time, gobbling up fuel to heat them. The wealthy around town could put up solar panels, drive Teslas, find ways to shrink their house in the winter, but they don't. There just doesn't seem to be a critical mass of concern from what I can see. And if individuals don't care, why would companies? Why would our representatives?
14
@Kim It is not just the wealthy, nobody wants to give up what they want, but they want to tell others what to do. Higher fuel taxes hit the poor and lower middle class most. The wealthy can afford it, and many can reduce their use that are not poor.
1
Intrigued by some of the language used in this piece. The section about a colder winter in New England causing an increase in emissions as people used their heaters more suggests that temperatures are not rising, yet later in the piece the term “global warming” is used. I only point this out because in order to gain support for 7173, citizens need to understand what is creating the climate around them, and the contrasting language may not help.
How then, should we communicate this message? And what, as a reader, should we take? Terms such as climate change and global (or climate) weirding may be more accurate but are not as powerful, and we need impactful vernacular to deepen understanding. All these terms are impersonal and do not call for any habit change, which is ultimately needed for emissions to be reduced.
Also surprised at the mention of Paris Accords, but not the US’s history of pulling out of international agreements (Kyoto and Paris) or the IPCC. This is an important article! It conveys some of the paradoxes we seem to be faced with. I just wonder if this article is too niche for the population at large to understand the nuances of climate issues.
And curious what others think - does this play to too specific of an audience? I know every article can’t walk through the US’s history with climate change, but (and I honestly do not know) does everyone have enough of the same knowledge base for this to inspire change?
@Hannah F I understand it very well. Nothing we or the world will do can keep CO2 from rising, NOTHING!!! Adapt, allow the bad things to reduce population around the world. Keep the US from increasing its population, especially by restricting immigration. Not that any progressive would like those things.
1
We’ll keep pushing forward on the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act until there is a price on pollution. In the meantime, we all need to vote for reducing emissions with our daily purchases. Consider carefully our daily and large purchases, because they send market signals to producers. We need local community efforts to improve building energy efficiency. We need business leaders to declare they are making changes that incrementally reduce emissions. We definitely need to increase the options for plant-based foods in our diets. And keep writing to Congress about our demand for carbon pricing. It will happen. But will it happen in time?
1
@Dave W Carbon dividend is just a stupid way to try to reallocate wealth, nothing else. The assumptions in it are idiotic, it will hurt the poor and other lower class economic individuals and do little in the world to reduce CO2. Worthless and punishing the US poor so poor around the world can be a little less poor.
2
Increased economic activity or increased population that leads to more increased economic activity? When we celebrate the fact that we have a population of 300 million we overlook the impact of population growth on pollution. Isaac Azimov estimated that pollution grows as the cube of population growth. Now consider the world as a whole, and global population growth, and we may have an insoluble problem.
We can't go back, of course, but all the fixes for CO2 reduction put together will fail unless population growth is somehow quelled at the same time.
7
@umbler Good points but actually it needs to be reversed, not just decreased in growth. Lower population by say in the US by at least 20%.
2
If Trump doesn't work for China, or Russia or some combination of hydrocarbon industries along with the oil producers, it may have to be considered seriously, that indeed, he does work for the Devil himself. How else to explain his ridiculously good luck in the face of hurricanes, floods and disasters of Biblical proportions, world wide?
Not since the American civil war, have citizens been so viciously and cruelly at war over ending or ensuring the continuation and expansion of an obvious evil,(race slavery).
Carboniferous combustion and pollution are our race slavery issue. Our problem is that we refuse to come to grips with individuals and parties responsible -mostly, as we all benefit from twiddling our thumbs and "whistling past the graveyard".
1
@meloop You must live in a fantasy alternative reality to believe any of this, you actually think using energy is like slavery of the far past.
Fusion (not fission) technology is our only real hope.
Some of the best minds in the world are working on this.
Just sayin.
I don’t think putting our hope in a technology that doesn’t exist yet is the best strategy. That’s like racking up credit card debt in your 20s thinking “when I get a high paying job in my 30’s it’ll pay for all this”. It might not happen. We have to make a climate success plan with the technology we have right now.
1
@New World
Fusion is the pipe dream of every physicist and anti combustion individual on the planet. Actually, we already have fusion-in the Sun! We use the visible spectrum of radiation in white light to activate solar panels and produce electricity.
Our main problem is one of perception. People cannot see that Fusion is a far off possibility which would-like nuclear-also render oil, gas and coal business moot and make their current status as the grease that moves the wheels of industry, into dispensable and dangerous poisons.
Americans need to look at Fukushima and the really serious but now mostly cleared, Chernobyl sites. These accidents occurred as result of humans without knowledge of power generaton or dangers of uncooled piles, were allowed to run reactors without safety plans-both Japan and Russia's industrial styles and modes of conducting business led to the disasters. Chernobyl was run by Soviet truck drivers-the most privileged workers in Communist Russia-and the Japanese allowed Fukushima to be built"upside down" so it could not obtain fresh water in an emergency-even though a 400year old stone wall warned all Jpanaese never to construct any permanent towns or structuresnear the shore which regularly was hit with tsunami.
Our desire for oil may well poison us but no one thinks to end it-even though we could easily run everything with safe and clean nuclear plants.
2
@New World Sure they are, and they are just as far away from that as we were 50 years ago. Why not say antimatter generation. Fusion won't be here any time soon, the costs of restraining the temperatures are large. Geo thermal is a good alternative some places, as well as run of the river hydro. There are plenty of alternatives that already exist, they are just expensive and we would have to abandon some current generation.
2
"Please allow 6 to 8 weeks for delivery."
I lived with that, most of my life. Though electronic payments did reduce the shipping time.
The sheep that believe in global warming are becoming the real victims of this version of a climate scam. The last version, Ice Age, lasted until the early 80's; when ideas for monetizing the 'science' were limited if not non existent.
Controlling carbon emissions just isn't working. Rather than being fixed on that, let's try some out of the box thinking - nuclear, carbon capturing bacteria, etc.
There's so much emphasis on carbon control, that it seems more like political manipulation than sensible policy.
2
@Amy Exxon has been working on making oil and using CO2 through bio methods for decades, not there yet.
The thought of a future co-existing with nuclear plants that have stored waste without a solution boggles my mind. What were we thinking?
@katesisco There are two solutions, one that the French use currently, that would be storage. Some fools canceled our storage. Recycling is also possible, it is expensive and can produce weapon grade material. We are wimps and don't want to address the issues. Now dry storage is being used today it is possible but not that long term.
1
As long as we don’t see the dynamic between a growing human population and pollution but only try to blame the causes of the demands like coal plants, we will never tackle the real solution
In all developed countries all the policies in the next decade should be directed at giving incentives for citizens to have less children and stop financial incentives to have more like in France where families are tempted to have a third child because of the huge tax benefits.
The one child policy that China had is surely not a model we could implement in western democracies but research have showed that because of that policy, they avoided having around 600 million births.
Would the level of pollution be better with 600 million more Chinese and the huge coal plants they have had to run to supply the demand ?
Obviously China isn’t alone the problem, as we would be better with less population in the United States and Europe.
Let’s start in our countries to show the example and reduce our population like its happening in Japan because with AI and robotic we are definitely not going to need more babies
5
The quality of life for people in the USA started to plateau in the 1970's and then go down in the 1980's. Once the middle class had their bathrooms and three bedroom brick veneer homes and access to contraceptives, there was no need for continuing acquisition of "stuff" and bigger houses, bigger cars, bigger stores, etc. But rather than take the trajectory of preservation and celebration of the wealth and luxury we had achieved, USA culture chose the MORE is better option and listened to developers who wanted " growth" in terms of production of unnecessary goods rather than in education, global peace, equity, beauty, etc. What we end up with is global waste and ignorance in our own population and war and poverty globally. Indeed, progress has been made in medicine and scientific discovery, but there was money in that, and there is a threat to medical advances from people who want to make more money from human misery. Let's focus on developing an economy that balances the world rather than exploiting it. Plant trees, read and write poetry, sing songs, draw pretty pictures, learn to make something beautiful, play with your children...Be happy with what you have and work to protect it. Plant trees and flowers, protect the water supply and mother nature.
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@chichimax Beautiful advice you give: "Plant trees, read and write poetry, sing songs, draw pretty pictures, learn to make something beautiful, play with your children...Be happy with what you have and work to protect it. Plant trees and flowers, protect the water supply and mother nature." This article pinpoints air travel as a major dirty bit, so spreading the concept that traveling less and staying home more (and planting flowers and writing poetry...) is vital.
3
@chichimax So your quality of life is not improved by having a phone and the internet that does so many things for you? Our quality of life is much better today due to the internet and computing.
1
@Branch Curry Not to mention eliminating business travel, use electronic meeting facilities instead. No need for poetry either.
1
The increase in carbon emissions in 2018 is an ominous sign of the times. Trump’s abrogation of the Paris climate accord coupled with the roll back of emission standards, and, indeed, the decimation of the EPA, is a reversal of years of progress under both Democratic and Republican administrations, and it could not come at a worse time. With record levels of rainfall and erratic weather patterns around the world, we face imminent disaster if we do not act urgently to stem the tide of climate change. Although in modern times the United States was always a leader in this area, under the Trump administration we are a sorry laggard and setting the worst example imaginable.
Three things need to happen quickly. First, we need to reaffirm our commitment to the Paris agreement. Second, we need to phase out the use of fossil fuels to the greatest extent possible and penalize their utilization after an appropriate transition period. Third, we need to accelerate the move to battery operated cars, trucks and heavy equipment. The government should not only endorse these goals, but fund research to achieve them and tax incentives to exceed them. We will then create a better and cleaner planet, promote giant new industries that respect the earth and a record number of manufacturing and service jobs in the U.S. This is not a time to ignore the realities, cater to antiquated technologies and withdraw from the world stage. Rather, it is a time for bold action and leadership.
7
@Jeffrey ZuckermanAnd charge those batteries only when the sun is shining and/or the wind is blowing
@Jeffrey Zuckerman None of that is happening nor would it be effective. Where do you think the electricity for all those things is going to come from? Where is the raw materials and manufacturing capability coming from. Just dreaming, not adapting.
1
Coal plants close and emissions rise. Well, that wasn’t supposed to happen! There are some electric trucks and busses. But I haven’t heard of an electric passenger plane. Environmentalists should embrace them when they are a reality.
2
Reducing greenhouse emissions by up to 50% *should* be easy and result in essentially no change in quality of life. It can be accomplished by using tried-and-true techniques of conserving energy. Granted, this goes against American mentality (post- Depression & WWII, that is, during which time it was very American--aside from the War which was what used the energy that was being saved stateside). How?
• Eliminate use of all energy not needed (think, lights on all night long at schools, dealerships, TV sets, doorbells, signage that is lit rather than brightly painted, and on and on). Added benefit: dark skies return. Safety can be maintained by using motion sensors, if needed.
• Reduce transportation by half (reduce trips not needed, especially unnecessary business travel--think all the academics who go on unnecessary, and hypocritical conference travel).
• If voluntary measures don't work (they won't), energy will have to reflect its real cost, at least for those who can pay (business, those making more than a defined annual amount).
4
@Boonskis And many more innovative or obvious methods: business and schools should incentivize not traveling when not needed. Business can reduce the number of workdays from 5 to 4 to reduce travel. Take Sunday and Saturday off. Make it legal for hotels to install timers or motion detectors on emergency/stairwell lights rather than leaving them on 24/7. "Free shipping" has gone a long way to encourage the idea that shipping doesn't cost: it does. Make the actual price of shipping appear with the cost of the product--it's a form of disinformation, just like it's illegal to make false claims on cereal box
es. And on and on.
2
@Boonskis Yes, costs. Cost should also be figured as to the environmental aspect, not just the monetary.
@Boonskis. Good idea on info disclosure regarding shipping of goods. You're right, it's never "free"
1
Despite this most recent increase, US CO2 emissions are down from their peak in circa 2005-2007 according to the graph accompanying the article.
China meanwhile has continued its unbroken upward trend in CO2 emissions.
While we can and should do much more, real progress will not be made until China, the mother of all emitters, is brought to heel.
Our climate sins are manifest. They include allowing the venting of Methane from natural gas wells on the basis that it is too difficult to recover economically. This is because we have not placed a cost on the emitting of greenhouse gasses. That cost should include the direct health effects of methane venting.
All of this is part of the greater problem. We live in a limited bio-sphere. There are real limits on resources such as energy, pollutant absorptive capacity and arable land. There are few if any limits on the desire for humanity to consume. It is becoming increasingly apparent that this bio-sphere cannot meet the ultimate demands on resources required to raise the standard of living for all 8 billion inhabitants. In fact, it is arguably beyond the realm of possibility to satisfy the aspirations of 1 billion.
The irrefutable conclusion of many studies is that we must begin the process of equalizing human wealth and resource consumption or face catastrophic health and environmental consequences.
5
@Brian Barrett
China does need to step up--India and other populous nations too. But keep in mind that we Americans still emit at least twice as much CO2 per person as China, and much more than India. And most of the increase in CO2 over time is ours, along with the other industrialized nations. This is a long-term problem, so blaming China for catching up in the past decade isn't really a fair analysis.
1
@brent China has 5-6 times as many people as we do. They are the largest emitter of CO2 in the world. Long term or not, they need to be accountable, now!
1
@brent Per person is BS, by country is fair. So if we allow millions into our country we can put out CO2 more??
2
Of course CO2 emissions increased last year. . .it's the economy and the American ability to waste energy. Those of us who claim to be deeply concerned about the effects of human activity upon climate change must examine our own energy usage. Question we must ask: why don't I have solar panels on my home - the ROI is between 10% - 16%? Why don't I drive a hybrid? Why don't I have Low-E windows in my home? Could I walk to the store or bike? Is it necessary to drive the kids 1/2 mile to school? Should I buy perishables from half way around the world?
We must accept the reality that our elected representatives reflect our actions. . .they are us. If we do not lead by example, they will continue to dither.
13
Individual responsibility is most certainly important. Anything like solar panels will help. But it’s a pittance compared to the footprint multinational corporations doing harm to our air and environment.
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@Jim Good points but your ROI I don't understand at all, some of those things I currently do, I could use some mass transit if it was closer to my home. Those in large cities don't need a car at all, they need to do much more.
5,319 million metric tons x (1,000 kilograms/1 metric ton) =
5.319 x 10^12 kgs of CO2. Since at standard temperature and pressure: one mole of any gas occupies 22.4 Ls of volume, then burning of fossil fuels in 2018 should have increased the volume of CO2 in the atmosphere by:
[5.319 x 10^15 gms of CO2 x (22.4 Ls/1 mole of CO2) x (1 mole of CO2/44 gms of CO2) = 2.71 x 10^15 Ls].
To estimate the volume of the Earth's total atmosphere: 1) Take the volume of the Earth and 2) subtract it from (the volume of the Earth + its atmosphere).
With a circumference of about 25,000 miles, Earth's radius is about 3981 miles, estimated as follows:
C = 2(pi)r so 25,000 miles = 2(3.14)r; so r = 25,000 miles/6.28 and r = 3981 miles.
The recent testing of Mr.Virgin's spacecraft showed an atmosphere of 51 miles in height. So:
V of the Earth = 4/3(pi)r^3 = (4/3)(3.14)(3981 miles)^3 =
(4.19)(6.31 x 10^10 miles^3 = 2.64 x 10^11 miles^3].
Similarly, the V of (the Earth + its atmosphere) =
[4/3(pi)r^3 = 4/3(pi)(3981 miles + 51 miles) =
4/3(3.14)(4032 miles)^3 = 2.75 x 10^11 miles^3].
So, the V of the Earth's atmosphere = (V of the Earth + its atmosphere) - (V of the Earth) = 2.75 x 10^11 miles^3 - 2.64 x 10^11 miles^3 = 1.1 x 10^10 miles^3.
[And, 1.1 x 10^11 miles^3 = 4.6 x 10^22 L^3]. So is the total atmospheric storage capacity 1.1 x 10^22 Ls with about 2.71 X 10^15 Ls of CO2 gas released in 2018 before considering the leveraging effects of CO2's and CH4's infrared absorptions?
Even a total shutdown of human CO2 emissions right now would not affect the warming, which will accelerate as arctic and sub-arctic permafrosts melt and generate astounding volumes of the 30x more potent Methane gas. Already, millions of sub-arctic lakes are bubbling away, venting methane.
Hothouse earth, soon.
(Not to mention the 10,000 other ways we are destroying the planet)
9
Regardless of what you mentioned, we need to combat every form of carbon emissions and other climate change contributors. Doing nothing will get us nothing. If we want to truly change this horrific situation, we need to take this head-on. With 7.5 billion in the world people and 350 million people here all burning carbon, of course we are having a large imprint. The takeaway from this article cannot be to simply throw our arms up and allow impending doom. Money talks. And if these companies and/or consumers are incentivized, we can slow this existential threat down, at the very least.
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@Tom
So true. A massive effort can reduce the horror and death.
Last note: it really shouldn’t be “difficult” to reduce our carbon output. Tax these corporate giants enough that they’ll either have to pay steep amounts of money and/or massive fines. If they want to avoid such action, then take the initiative. I thought the amazing market would solve our climate change problem.
As long as this system is in place, we can NEVER trust industry to police themselves for obvious reasons. Pollutants in the air kills. Both in the long term and right now.
Tax, tax, tax these corporations before it’s too late. They’ve made trillions off our backs already. And if they refuse to comply, then give heavy incentives/rebates/subsidies for electric cars.
4
When you increase manufacturing, jobs, GNP in general, you increase carbon emissions. This is a global result, not just in the U.S. We need to find better ways to reduce emissions from existing facilities and we need places to safely store carbon emissions that are gathered. We have the means to scrub emissions but we have no place to safely store that which is removed. Solar, wind, tidal and other natural generators of energy need to advance faster and further. Just ask Ocasio-Cortez, she has ALL the answers.
Your take away from this is that Ocasio-Cortez is an adversary in getting this existential threat of climate change under control? Give me a break.
Of course it’s a tough issue, but we simply do not have the time to keep looking for the sanctimonious “market” for answers. Government needs to step in hard for us to have any shot of combating this crisis.
1
We need to get serious about cutting the demand for all sources of energy. Unless we do all these energy bridges to tomorrow will only carry with them their great dependency on continuing uses of fossil.
But given the unchallenged imperative for growth, growth the cure for all that ails capitalism, we are coupled to the reality of an economic system at odds with sustaining life on earth. The capitalist ark of man vs. the ark of earth.
I don't see how 3.4% constitutes a "surge". That is about in line with GDP.
8
Economic output doesn’t necessarily correlate perfectly with carbon emissions. People can be more productive while using cleaner forms of energy or simply being more efficient with their consumption, and as the article states - colder temperatures drive up emissions but usually the opposite effect on economic activity.
4
@LMJr
It's a 'surge' in relation to our stated, urgent goal to reduce by 28% in the next 6 years, and then on to carbon-free. Same old same old is a formula for SPECIES EXTINCTION--get it?
@Sean Brennan
So you think 3.4% is a surge? How much is a trickle?
2
We should incentivize Amazon and their delivery companies (including USPS) to use cleaner trucks and to re-use cardboard packaging. These "stick" incentives could be in the form of taxes on retailers and deliverers, as well as on all of us who order products through the mail. "Carrot incentives" could be tax breaks or rebates for using cleaner trucks and re-using cardboard packaging.
5
@B I'd be willing to bet that one Amazon truck delivering to many houses emits less carbon than many household vehicles driving out to stores.
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@Robert Evans That may be, and that's wonderful but it doesn't mean we should stop there!
God forbid Mr. $150 Billion Bezos would actually do something that would help the world/planet. Getting a free $2B for HQ2 must be really tough on him financially.
Noticeably absent from this story is the contribution of carbon from animal agriculture, which some studies show contribute more greenhouse gasses than all transportation sectors. Start small and reduce the consumption of meat, dairy and eggs. The planet will benefit as will your health.
16
@M. Staley Give us some respected reliable studies first. And even a large jump in folks reducing meat, dairy, eggs would have an infinitesimally small effect overall.
You have to realize that the US portion of global emissions is around 15-16%. So any effect the US has, good or bad, cut it by about a factor is 6. That 3% jump becomes less than 1/2% jump worldwide.
1
This shows that an effective policy for climate change has to address all sectors that contribute to carbon dioxide production. It’s not enough to go green for electricity generation if you’re not going after transportation and industry.
You have to give the Carbon Fee and Dividend people credit for producing a plan to do that. I’d like to see a version of it in Green New Deal.
6
My hopes for steady annual reductions in emissions are behind me. Imagine, though, that the myriad efforts to reduce emissions will soon lead to a tipping point when they start having a dramatic effect on reductions. This thought gives me hope, though I may be fooling myself.
Economic growth is not often the focus of climate change discussions Instead, we usually hear about coal, autos, and the importance of developing and expanding renewable energy. These are surely important fundamentals for limiting the effects of climate change. However, climate change involves a triad: population growth, fossil fuel emissions, and the resulting explosion of world GNP.
Unfortunately, pundits rarely address the latter in their business reporting, unless the focus is on the necessity of using cleaner fuels. Nevertheless, as critical as renewable energy is, it cannot replace the output of fossil fuels within the near future. The estimates are that the various fossil fuels will deplete over the next hundred years, if burned at current rates. So, whether we cut our use of fossil fuels now, or they run out later, the global economy will go from industrial/post-industrial to micro-industrial sometime in the twenty-second century.
Just as the advent of industrialization improved our lives in many (not all) ways, micro-industrialization will only produce the basics of life for most.
You will find a more detailed discussion about this on my blog. Click on climate change, health, & micro-industrialization.
StephenFieldingImages.org
3
It's probably unreasonable to expect carbon emissions to decline in every sector of the economy. It looks like we have achieved much lower emissions in regard to power generation. That's big and it should be encouraged.
Next, it would be reasonable to shift our focus to industry. When you're the biggest economy in the world and you have one of the largest populations of any country in the world you cannot expect virtually zero emissions overnight.
4
@MIKEinNYC And the biggest economy in the world only contributes about 1/6 of the world's emissions, we can't forget that.
Good progress has been made over the past decade. We simply need to continue on a path that has a pragmatic mix of reducing fossils as well as not burdening the economy or the consumer unduly.
A balancing act where slow and stead will win the race.
But, since the US only contributes to about 1/6 of the global picture, some kind of BINDING and PRAGMATIC worldwide agreement needs to come into play. The Paris Accord, where almost no major country is hitting their goals, was NOT it.
1
This is the problem with climate change. Addressing it will require a re-think of everything, even things that we hold dear. It's easy to say get rid of coal. I'm all for that. Now, who is for paying much higher prices for meat? For avocados because how much carbon does it take to get them to NY in January? Who is for limiting immigration and world travel?
5
You’ll never ever see scrubbers on the coal plants around KC.
Sierra Club has tried.
That was one big reason why I headed back to the Emerald City. I can breathe here.
4
OK rocket scientists, fill me in. As CO2 is not a point source issue (like acid rain was), how does one determine the source of the CO2? The fact that there's CO2 in the atmosphere in the USA doesn't account for source. Just askin'....
7
@Mike
Fossil fuel Co2 has a unique signature. It contains no carbon 14 and comprise 25% of the world’s CO2 .
6
@Mike
Carbon emissions are usually not measured directly. They are tracked through carbon accounting that is derived from energy use. Each fuel and electricity grid has a unique combination of emissions that come from their use.
We know the amount of carbon released to the atmosphere because we know how much gasoline, electricity, fuel oil, diesel, district steam, etc. was consumed.
3
@Steve Fielding OK, but that doesn't address the question of source, as in geographic.
Simple logic dictates that emissions decrease with poor economic growth and increase with positive economic growth. Therefore it's clear that Democrats are willing to sacrifice the living standards of Americans to chase a pipe dream. If you think the yellow jacket rebellion in France is bad, wait until Democrats try this at home. As the old saying goes, you ain't seen nothing yet.
7
@Jon Galt. The reverse should actually be true, unless you consider disaster relief funding part of the growing economy you're counting on.
3
@Jon Galt, so what it the right measure for "standard of living"? a) having no measure of moderation now and not caring about what comes in the next generation? or b) strive towards a livable environment with air to breathe and clean water to drink that allows us and the next generations to all have a chance to survive? The implementation of stricter rules during the Obama administration have not ruined our standard of living, they have not tanked the economy, they even grew the economy. Don't repeat the typical fear mongering from the people that are interested neither in a) or b), but in c) Make enough money for themselves in their lifetime even if it destroys a livable environment for their contempories.
3
Come to Utah and take a deep breath if you dare.
Winter air inversions here are a killer, literally.
The Legislature wants to build an inland port on 20,000 acres west of SLC that thousands of trucks will use each day.
Utah thinks that adding more highway lanes and a $3.4B airport rebuild will improve Utah.
In my State they complain all the time about all the people from CA moving here but they love the resulting growth in spending.
Do your family a health benefit - ski in another state during the winter.
6
This article missed the obvious green solution to stated problem. New nuclear power technologies need to be developed. The efficiency of nuc plants could be improved >100X (that's 10,000%) by using molten salt fuels which reduce waste, remove the water cooling problems already demonstrated in current designs, and are more difficult to convert to make weapons. This technology has already been demonstrated at Oak Ridge lab with a molten salt reactor running continuously for 6 years. It will take a some years to develop and perfect, but if we need to start now. For more info google "thorium molten salt reactors".
8
@chemvironmentalist
I love demonstration plants but they somehow fail in real use like the one in FL. Wind is not free, using the wind here means it is not there and may be a significant contributor to climate change. Ditto problems with solar where a central node needs to be able to hold stored heat.
The back-slapping and hurrahs about the fall of CO were led by catalytic converters that merely reformed it to CO2.
Speaking to the efficiency of nuke plants, MOX has its own share of problems. Reading about nuclear on the web identifies the catastrophe looming in the US. Stored waste has been tripled and still sits onsite.
Even the electric universe crowd's efforts at the Sapphire facility have not come to fruition. They hoped to create as plasma that would degrade radioactive daughter products rapidly.
Where do you think Japan will dump its radioactive material? As we have for the last 75 years, we will continue to 'research' and develop and perfect' an imaginary resolution to our hubris.
3
Another reason not to get a new iPhone every year.
16
Our schools should make this issue the most important thing a student should learn. It should start from pre K to 12th grade.
23
@Greg We learned in back in school back in the 60s and 70s. From rivers catching fire to acid rain to DDT to how New York City was going to be under water by the year 2000 (science does not always get predictions correct).
And I know it is a big leap for the instant gratification generations, but look at the progress made on emissions (both quantity of and quality of) since 60s and 70s to now.
Compare an early 70s Pinto to a low end economy car of today. From emissions to performance to safety to gas mileage the improvement have been HUGE simply looking at low end internal combustion economy cars. Not counting hybrids and electrics.
My goodness, most SUVs get around the same gas mileage as the Pinto did while burning WAY, WAY cleaner.
2
I agree. And every high school student should be required to read the book “Eating Animals” by Jonathan Safran Foer.
1
Despite the dire nature of climate warming and a reluctance of the current federal administration to address this very real problem, there is a paramount significant trend that has developed over time that may set the table for future hope. The first and perhaps most significant is the consolidation of populations into great metropolitan communities. This a worldwide phenomenon and creates opportunities for significant wealth creation and economic efficiencies that with proper planning and good local and state/provincial government administration can bypass national inaction and address many climate issues. With this in mind, technologies in energy production, transportation and building construction, renovation and operations and approaches to land uses that encourage livable urban environments will impact climate change. Certainly many millions of Americans and billions more people around the world have already chosen to live in urban environments for personal economic, political and social reasons and more will come. This is a multi-generational trend. Switching to renewable energy sources, improving intra- and inter-urban transit systems, changing diets from beef to chicken and then to vegetable based foods will ultimately prove to be the easy and only path available to us.
4
I remember the first Earth Day celebration when I was in high school now I’m 65 not too worried about my fate anymore.
I can’t recommend that my children be fruitful.
6
Electric trucks are here.....they can be used with solar-wind powered electric.
https://electrek.co/2018/12/21/daimler-deliver-first-all-electric-freightliner-truck/
https://cleantechnica.com/2018/12/17/4-more-reasons-that-electric-trucks-are-better-than-diesel-trucks/
https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/12/volvo-trucks-teases-the-all-electric-semi-truck-its-bringing-to-california-in-2019/
There is hope, but Gas Oil Pollution needs to remove its head from its filthy derriere in order to take advantage of science.
20
@Socrates
The electricity that is stored in batteries normally comes from the disgusting massively polluting energy plant hidden at the end of the rail line. Unless we have solar panels that actually sit on the top of the cabs and generate sufficient energy to keep the battery recharged. But probably not. Too bad we did not decide to make the costly decision to retool and improve the 10% efficient internal combustion engine.
4
Train locomotives powered by electricity have been around for more than 100 years. No need for batteries.
4
@Socrates And they will work their way into the system. Just as cars will. Folks have to realize that progress is being made but you cannot pragmatically replace everything overnight. Or in one year. Or in ten years. It takes time and is a steady process.
2
House resolution 7173, sponsored by Dems and R's, The Energy Innovation and carbon Dividend Bill, is the best opportunity to get us going in the right direction. Economic modeling projects it will add green jobs, increase GNP, while reducing fossil emissions 50% over 20 years. Even that is not enough on its own, but it avoids the objections of left and right and is supported by serious policymakers on both sides of the aisle. Far more effective and all inclusive than Cap and Trade. Trump would never sign it, but we should educate about it and be ready when Trump is a bad memory.
10
@DMATH
On occasion Trump is right!!
It is a little misleading to emphasize 2005 as the turning point in U.S. CO2 emissions. It is true that vehicle miles traveled in the U.S. peaked that year, dampened by the sharp rise in gasoline prices. But it was really in 2008, with the onset of the Great Recession, that overall emissions really started to decline. That is clear from the graph shown.
These observations are important, because they show how dependent upon fossil fuels our economy is. Rising fuel prices helped topple economic growth, and, after a long, slow recovery, the current boom is being fueled by a return to cheap energy.
We want it both ways: cheap energy and reduced emissions. Without massive intervention in the economy, that is just wishful thinking. Possibly even then.
Green New Deal or bust!
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@Brian Stewart "Green New Deal or bust!" This is entirely the wrong attitude. Continues steady progress like we have been making is the way to go. We don't need some massive government based intrusion. We simply need to feds and states to keep providing solid targets and rules that allows businesses to make steady progress.
"Green New Deal" is now a toxic progressive term that you won't even see moderate GOPs, and probably a number of moderate Dems, touch with a 10-foot pole.
All or Nothing is not the way to go. Slow and stead, over time, is how we have been making real progress. Compare just about anything from 50 years ago to today and you will see huge progress in both emissions as well as the quality of those emissions.
A 2018 Honda Accord is head and shoulders above a 1.4 liter 1971 for Pinto in every emission aspect. By a LOT.
@Marvin
I hear these incrementalist arguments all the time, and I too subscribed to them until quite recently.
Here's the thing: with emissions still *accelerating*, and the window for achieving emissions consistent with "organized society" soon to close, incremental progress is insufficient.
I am not naive enough to think that we are at the political moment when so dramatic a change is possible. But public opinion can change fast. That is why you should join me in calling for a Green New Deal, to help pave the way for that moment.
It may be true that the perfect is the enemy of the good. But the good is now becoming the enemy of survival.
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@Marvin
Slow and steady. Fine. Sure. Just understand that the clock also ran out on us. Decades ago. So either there is a last-minute mad dash, all-out, global "we're all in this together" scramble to TRY and survive, or we say "meh, oh well, too late, we failed, so might as well live it up now, won't make any difference". Which I spose is harder if ya got kids/grandkids/great-grandkids, or you're young-ish and were looking forward to the future.
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The US and the world need a carbon tax--a large on. The revenue could be used to rebate low income, support wind/solar and free mass-trans. If we don't keep it in the ground, little else will matter.
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These findings are yet another argument for enacting carbon taxes -- just, efficient and effective means of combating climate change -- though such taxes have recently been tarnished as politically impossible.
Better impossible politics than impossible survival.
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The uniqueness in Trump’s broad failings have to be taken advantage of by all in this forum.
2020 offers not only the U.S. but the globe a blank sheet in resetting our political and economic norms.
This year is one of the most important ever as we have an opportunity to influence the future policies of presidential candidates.
Sadly, Macron’s poorly orchestrated carbon tax which was aimed at the individual citizen as opposed to taxing egregiously polluting industries has brought further stigma to the idea of a carbon tax.
Therefore, the “Green New Deal” is our most promising prospective. Not only should we write to our favorite blue candidate and demand that a Green New Deal be a priority but we should force the contents of the deal to be defined and bold.
I am in my mid twenties and I so badly want my children and even grandchildren to see the Galapagos, the Aran Islands and the Great Barrier Reef.
Let’s go to work.
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@James
If we fight climate change, a sailboat may be their only way to get there.
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@James
But the thought of Mar a Lago and Wall Street under water is very pleasant!
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Over one third of all nuclear plants in the US are going to be closed early before their licenses expire. This is because natural gas is cheaper today in the US but not in the far east, for example. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists the threat is the replacement of their low carbon electricity with fossil fuel. Gas, while it produces less carbon dioxide, is a fossil fuel just like oil. Wind and solar can supplement but not provide base load. I was interested to see that there was not one mention of the word nuclear in this article. Not one. Economic success is strongly associated with energy use. There is no option but nuclear at the present time and none on the horizon. It would be wise, according to the UCS, to implement a carbon tax to allow nuclear to benefit from its carbon free nature. It would be wise to implement a fossil fuel tax to minimize carbon use and to protect us from the tyranny of the mid east reserves. The fracking boom is a boom and no more. We are simply getting more oil out of the same old reservoirs. The reason they don't frack in the mideast is because they have another few hundred years of reserves at minimal cost. Much of the opposition to fuel taxes and nuclear comes from lobbyists working for Saudi Arabia or gas industry lobbyists. When historians look back at the US a hundred years from now, if any exist, they may say neglecting nuclear was the mistake that destroyed the world.
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@as,
Not clear why "mentioning nuclear" is relevant here.
If you favor some government action like a carbon tax to reduce burning fossil fuels, what difference does it make *how* we replace the energy?
If we restrict fossil fuels, then the market can decide about the relative merits of renewables and nuclear. The fact that you use the term "base load" indicates that you are probably repeating talking points without understanding the options available.
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Nuclear power comes at a future cost of containment and storage of nuclear waste. The present cost includes cleanup of existing nuclear waste stockpiles before they seep into groundwater (ex Hanford, WA). Current nuclear power sites are at risk for rising sea levels as well as areas with earthquake fault risks (Diablo Canyon and San Onofre).
Look to a combination of wind and solar industries that are combining generation, distribution, and storage of renewable power to meet the growing energy needs of Northern Europe, the US east coasts, and Southeast Asia. The company Orsted in Denmark is an example of an oil based company that has switched to wind and sustainable wood products to replace a growing sector of energy needs in Denmark, Germany, and the UK.
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@M Perez
What does Hanford, WA have to do with nuclear power generation?
It's a site left-over from nuclear *weapons* programs. That's a misleading, guilt-by-association argument.
The fact is, UK is growing its nuclear capacity, and Germany had to turn to domestic coal and imported (French) nuclear energy, when its solar and wind capacity predictably turned out to be insufficient.
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I suspect the calculation of relatively decreasing CO2 emissions per GDP over the past few years does not factor in the embedded emissions from imports. The US chronic trade deficit means it buys from abroad, particularly from China, more than it sells to the world. Many of those goods come directly from US manufacturing transplanted out of the country. If the emissions from the production and transport of imported goods was counted in the US total the result would likely be a net negative, not a relatively positive one, as the writer of the article seems to believe.
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Lucky for all of us, there is a solution. Legislation addressing climate change has been introduced to Congress - the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act of 2018: S.3791 and H.R. 7173. This legislation places a fee on fossil fuels and returns a dividend to the American people. The idea is to change behavior - pushing people and the economy toward a sustainable future. Emissions will be reduced by at least 40% in 12 years and 2.1 million jobs will be created over 10 years. Write to your congressperson in support of this legislation and go to citizensclimatelobby.org to learn more about it. We can do this.
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@Linda Tarlow Oh great, another CCL cultist. People who think that not only is carbon pricing the only solution, but that only the CCL's policy specificics are good enough, despite the CCL's policy proposal not hitting a level sufficient to impact behavior for years. Do the math on how the proposed fee structure would impact things like beef prices or transcontinental flight prices, and tell me whether or not you think consumption of these things would significantly decrease (spoilers: not likely. Beef goes up by about 30 cents a serving at 100 USD / ton, a transcontinental 1-way flight by about 75 dollars)
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@David Savage
The Citizens' Climate Lobby is not a cult. Its bipartisan approach is sorely needed if we want our planet to survive. Working politically does not excuse our lack of small, incremental individual changes (less flying, less meat, no straws, no plastic bags). We humans all need to wake up and do our part - AND we here in the United States need to demand that our senators, congress folk, and yes, our president, deal effectively with this emergency, now!
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@David Savage
This is why government regulation is important. Government could provide regulations on rising flight costs. The cost of fuel has gone down substantially since the airlines responded with higher airfares to the last surge in fuel prices. Yet the airlines never passed on the reduction in fuel prices to consumers and continue to find ways to pack more people into planes.
Insofar as beef prices are concerned, this nations medical costs are impacted by those who eat too much meat. Maybe more costly meat would result in people eating smaller portions. A plus for these people and for taxpayer health costs.
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People are finally realizing that carbon emissions and energy use are proportional to economic growth. If we don't create the emissions here, they are created in the country that manufacturers our Amazon and Walmart products. Some scientist pose the theory that solar and wind do nothing to keep fossil fuels in the ground, they merely provide supplemental energy needed for our economic growth. We also know that without growth, our capitalist system collapses.
That said, it becomes quite obvious that we have created a horrific predicament- either we have economic collapse before environmental collapse, which could save some vestige of life and our species on the planet, or keep the economy from collapsing by shell games until the environment collapses. As humans think short term, we opt for delayed and increased future suffering over immediate suffering of any kind.
I'm sorry but I don't think we can reverse course. Human nature is not likely to change quick enough.
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@John Dyer
'People are finally realizing that carbon emissions and energy use are proportional to economic growth.'
That's just wrong. Some countries have much lower energy use/CO2 emissions per unit of GDP. Improvements in efficiency can allow growth even while emissions decline.
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@John Dyer
Or we have a carbon fee, which provides an incentive for EVERY individual and business to change, with a border adjustment to remove the incentive to move the pollution offshore. Best if the all proceeds of the tax is returned to taxpayers as dividend, so is not just another government tax but is neutral to taxpayers, except for the strong incentive to change.
Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend bill, coming in 2019.
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@SA Most first world countries outsource their dirty manufacturing and mining to third world countries. Again, Most of the products you buy in stores, on Amazon and much of an automobile's components do not have the carbon emissions counted in comparison to GDP. Not to mention international shipping emissions. This is a globalized economy, so the only accurate measure is global GDP to emissions, which does not show a positive trend.
Even the US- we're supposed to be getting more efficient, right? So why did emissions increase?
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The California wildfires released an enormous amount of carbon dioxide and methane into the United States atmosphere during 2018. And, the Kilauea volcano in Hawaii emitted around 15,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide per day while erupting last year.
Coal may be energy's redheaded stepchild, but Mother Nature isn't innocent when it comes to messing around with CO2 levels in the atmosphere.
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@Stone: Maybe so but the length of the wildfire season and the intensity of the fires were exacerbated by global warming.
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@david sabbagh Science doesn't allow for conveniently picking and choosing causes to describe an effect.
The author of the article was trying to explain an anomaly, being higher CO2 level emissions during 2018 in the face of the declining use of coal burning electric plants. He should have added the immense contribution from the California wildfires, which were headline news for weeks on end, couple with the natural phenomena of the Kilauea volcano...especially if he's going to point out specific causes during this limited window of time, like stronger economic output, increased use of jet and diesel fuel use, etc.
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@Stone Wildfires are largely carbon neutral. Trees grow back and take up the carbon again. Human CO2 emissions dwarf volcanic emissions by about 100 to 1.
https://www.skepticalscience.com/volcanoes-and-global-warming.htm
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Don’t expect improvements during this administration, which is being led by a kindergartner. It is sad to witness how great we were doing under Obama and how awful we are doing now.
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“Great” under Obama was a direct result of 8-10% unemployment (people not driving to work... because there was far less work) between 2009-2012, not by anything else.
Tens-of-millions [!] were “benched” for 2 or more years.
Unemployment fell below 4% in late 2018, despite multiple increases to the Fed’s interest rates. Full employment means people are “mobile.”
Getting TO/FROM work is an impact. Look at the size of Texas compared to entire countries like Germany or France...
Obama didn’t do anything except give $7,500 Federal subsidies to the 1% to buy Teslas, so they could drive in HOV lanes (alone).
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Also keep in mind the USA does not equal the entire world.
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@Matthew - And Thank Goddess! We represent 4.5% of global population and produce 15% of global GHG.
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My plan on becoming very rich selling beachfront property is to invest in land that is at least 10 or 20 feet above current sea level.
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I have commuted on a bicycle since 2008 and seen countless Americans driving across the street to by a plastic bottle of water. I watch countless neighbors drive their bikes to the trail head. Ask your neighbor about his or her Carbon Footprint and they will likely ask if Nike makes it. American's will never change due to this countries most paralyzing disease known as selective ignorance. Oil equals extinction as Nature Bats Last.
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You’re totally right! But the impact of large corporations who skirt the rules or push for deregulation is a massive issue as well. Corporations changing their practices to decrease emissions will be way more meaningful in the long run than individuals making eco friendly decisions on their own. I think we have to do both or we’re dead.
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To those worried about the daunting task of saving our species, getting representatives and corporations to follow through is tough, keep trying. However, at the end of the day, you are only responsible for your own contribution to climate change and plastic pollution - phew!
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@No fear, Oh good...at least when the water wars and mass (human) die-offs start, we can rest assured that it's not -our- responsibility. I'm sure that'll make everyone feel better.
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The freight train is picking up speed!
The free market that only exist as a Platonic ideal will not magically solve the carbon climate crisis.
Voluntary and insightful individual change will not be sufficient.
We need an energy revolution that only can be attained through the regulatory power of the state and through goal oriented global cooperation of nation states.
The US will go down in history as the nation that had the highest potential but failed through a combination of corruption, complacency and ignorance.
The window of opportunity to reverse the fate is about to close.
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Mr. Plumer hit the nail on the head. I am true-blue Chicagoan, but remain dismayed that Industries far removed from the major cities (coal, cattle ranches) have been singled out so as to avoid having us take a longer look in the mirror. I personally know successful entrepreneurs who will go vegan for the environment, but won’t make personal, more critical sacrifices of asking their customers to purchase no greater than 2 products to decrease CO2 emissions. Our investor-driven, shopaholic economy is very much to blame for environmental challenges and few want to admit this.
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Individuals can reduce their carbon footprint (CArbon dioxide emissions per person) by as much as 30% by changing their behavior. Read Drawdown, Solutions to reverse global warming: Drawdown.org
US national government under Trump has abandoned sane policies to reverse emissions. Consuming less, choosing green (solar and wind sourced) electricity and traveling locally can have an equal impact to government policies.
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We’re all totally addicted to energy. Literally everything we do creates carbon dioxide, directly or indirectly. The mass addiction cannot be stopped. Improved technology and rapid across-the-board conversion to alternative energy sources is the only foreseeable solution. The beast must be fed.
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For those commenting on individual actions to fight climate change -- you are missing the point. Climate change is a societal problem where one person's behavior itself has only a marginal impact, but adding up all those behaviors has a massive impact.
To change the behavior of society at large, we need new and radical policies. Let prices reflect the true environmental costs. This will change our behaviors by changing our incentives and it will be much more effective than asking individuals to act of their own volition, which only serves to distract from the real answer.
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Thepronlem: 7.7 billion apes and increasing every second. Too many of us polluters. Meanwhile species diversity declining by the minute.
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Did that work in France?
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@SK - Your point about creating massive improvement via individual action is well made, however, what is Plan B? Wait for the US Corporatized Congress to agree on any meaningful legislation, while we peeps rapidly become Toast?
We cannot wait. Our only option is for each of us to take personal responsibility now - today. Odds of success = low, but what's our choice? Not to pat myself on the back, but I work hard at reducing consumption. There have been many instances where visitors to my home have seen some of the simple, EZ, anybody-can-do-it ways in which I conserve (most of which I learned from others) and have left vowing to do the same. Positive actions spread one person at a time can quickly have huge impacts. As a side benefit, we can reduce our cost of living substantially.
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The U.S. emits less CO2 per GDP$ than China.
This is another reason to bring manufacturing back to the U.S. While this will lead to an increase in the U.S., it will lead to a correspondingly greater decrease in China.
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@John - No point blaming China. The US emits more than 2x CO2 per capita than China. We have no moral high ground on which to stand.
It's hard to see how the solution is anything other than moving away from a consumer-driven society. Eat less meat, fly less, buy fewer things that use energy to produce and ship. Try to be content with smaller, less, fewer. Ditch the SUV. Compost. Grow your own food.
It's hard to see that happening en masse. Even if the desire was there, and it's often not, the structural barriers to these behaviors are big. We've decentralized our families and need to travel to visit loved ones. Who has time to even learn how to garden, let alone plant and tend? Who wants a holiday season with few presents? And finally, if we did all the things we need to do systemically, it'd cost jobs and livelihoods. Oh, and most of the rest of the world aspires to more access to consumption.
It's obvious that increasing emissions at this point in history is playing Russian Roulette with society, maybe even the human species itself. We need smart, visionary leaders who can hack together some sort of transitional plan, and we need a global population willing to change expectations and goals. So.... I'll just sit here in the corner and watch the world smother.
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@Dan
You’re so correct, just as Al Gore wrote. You remember, the guy the Supreme Court decided shouldn’t be president. What will this court bring us now, when we really need leadership? It’s hard to imagine how different the world would be?
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@Dan Not quite so. Only a consumer driven society can empower a Co2 tax system. Whereas consumers purchase cheaper environmentally friendly products thereby forcing the 'industry' to produce these products.
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Hard to grow your own food when the vast majority of the world’s population lives in urban settings.
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It would be nice if these carbon dioxide articles would at least mention the increase in methane emissions. Since methane is 80 times more powerful as a greenhouse gas over a 20 year period (since it is longer-lived) than carbon dioxide, it is just as important to address the methane.
I don't believe we are coming close to measuring methane emissions. There are probably hundreds of thousands of leaky underground pipelines, natural gas well leaks and landfills that are emitting methane. And now, with the permafrost melting, methane is being emitted from arctic regions in vast amounts. CO2 may have initiated warming but methane will crown it.
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@Chris
Any front-page reporting we can get is a win, Chris. One step at a time. At least the NY Times is reporting the increase in carbon emissions on the front page.
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@Chris
Experts need reply, but I'm pretty sure methane has a shorter half-life than CO2, i.e., methane is SHORTER-lived.
In the short-term, methane is a much more powerful greenhouse gas than CO2.
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@Ann O. Dyne Neither of these are radioactive. They don't have half lives. They may be taken up or transformed into other substances. That's all.
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As a Kentuckian sympathetic to the families of coal miners who lost jobs due to the alleged US carbon emissions by coal plants as a major cause of climate change contribution in the USA, I am relieved that in 2018 the surge in carbon emission cannot be blamed on coal. As I have been saying time and time again each of us is contributing to US carbon emissions in some way. I drive a small fuel efficient car, I don't smoke, I recycle to the extent possible and I don't burn coal to cook anything, Yes I do travel overseas and domestically by passenger planes and I will cut that down. My point is simple we should each do our part.
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@Girish Kotwal While I am by no means discouraging you to stop taking those environmentally friendly measures, it is simply ignorant to think that the amount of radical change needed to combat this threat is possible from cumulative good will of American citizens. We need mass legislation if we are to have any chance of salvaging our planet.
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@Myles Donohue legislation to protect the environment has been a dead horse because enforcement has been flawed and loop holes abound so the next line of environmentally friendly measures have to become the frontline to protect the environment. Just like the MeToo movement shamed the perpetrators into submission without legislation let us start a wetoo movement to protect the environment by clearing the air, land and water of toxic pollutants by beginning with ourselves and a movement of we the people.
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@Girish Kotwal - you don't SMOKE? That's not going to reduce your carbon emissions by any meaningful amount. To be blunt, your overall carbon emissions would probably end up lower if you started smoking.
1