Dan wrote: > If this is true, than why has world usage of fossil fuel gone up > after a tripling of price?
Poor leadership. Can I have a cite for that BTW. > Every indication is that a worldwide recession is the > only thing that will stop the growth of fossil fuel usage. I think competent leaders would go a long way towards solving our problems > The widespread use of nuclear power will slow it, but is not > projected to stop it. > > Let's just look at the US. In '04, CO2 emissions were about 23% > above the Kyoto quota for the US. Now, it's safe to say it's >25% > above. So, to take the extremely small step that Kyoto represents: > delaying global warming 2-5 years will require the US to cut CO2 > production 20%. Yes, let's look at the U.S. Per capita energy consumption (2001) 7.92 kgoe/y. Japan: 4,091.5. U.K.: 3,993.8. France: 4,458.6. Germany 4,263.5. Russia: 4,288.8. Denmark: 3,706.1. OK, here's one that's in the parking lot of the ballpark; Australia: 5,974.9. That's 75% of U.S. consumption. Shame on you Australia 8^). > The sources and uses of power are available on the net. I've > looked at them. So, my question is...given what's available, how > can the US cut it's use of fossil fuel by 20% while still > experiencing economic and population growth over the next 10 > years? Looking at other industrialized nations, perhaps it isn't necessary to be wasteful to be successful. Beyond that, I'm guessing that there are ways that CO2 can be cut without lowering consumption. > I have tried to accurately express the consensus by quoting sites > that should represent the consensus: i.e. the UN agency responsible > for obtaining and publishing the best understandings of the > community. The numbers I quote do not include "mights" or > "coulds." They determined the probable range from the best > available data, models, etc. I do not give nearly as > much credence to single papers that indicate, for example, that > last year's strong hurricanes are the result of global warming. > There is no consensus on that. I think the error bars on the > number of strong hurricanes 30 years ago are large enough so that > no signal can be measured. Now, I'm not saying > that I know there is no significant correlation, but that the data > do not show it at the present time. > > I do not see this attempt by folks like Gore. I see Bush-league > scientific and economic understanding. Gore's argument (from an > interview I referenced here before) for being able to do it is: > "when we need to do something, it can be done...just look at the > Manhattan Project." The reviews by scientists I've seen say that in his movie Gore got the science right for the most part. Here's one: [http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/05/al-gores- movie/] or http://tinyurl.com/gke7d > So, if you think it is the equivalent of vacuuming, then it should > be straightforward to come up with a demonstration of how cheap and > easy it would be for the US to meet Kyoto. Set a goal to lower consumption to 125% of that of similar industrialized nations. Raise taxes so that consumers of energy cover the cost of the infrastructure required for its use plus some percentage for incentives, subsidies for those technologies that lower the demand for polluting sources and research. Continue to develop and implement methods for Co2 sequestration. Among many other proactive things we could be doing. Under Bush we're going backwards. In the time it took me to type this post we spent more than $5 M in Iraq, but lowering our dependence on Mid East oil would do more (IMO) to reduce the threat of terrorism than everything the Bush administration has ever done. If we can afford such a costly war, why can't we afford to vacuum? Doug _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
