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Greenhouse Emissions Drop Less During Economic Downturn Than Expected
An anonymous reader writes with a quick bite from Nature World News: "The contribution of economic decline in reducing greenhouse gas emissions is very low, reveals a new study. Researcher Richard York of the University of Oregon studied data collected between 1960 and 2008 from more than 150 nations in order to analyze the impact of economic decline on greenhouse gas emissions."
From the paper: "In Model 2, the percentage of the population living in urban areas and the percentage of GDP from the manufacturing sector were included as control variables. This model has lower data coverage than Model 1 (154 versus 160 nations, and 4,134 versus 5,630 nation-year observations) owing to missing data on the control variables. The coefficients, at 0.752 for growth and 0.346 for decline, are similar to those from Model 1 and, as in Model 1, are both significantly different from 0 and significantly different from each other."
My guess is, that despite the cut in GDP, and the long, painful period of high unemployment, the economy hasn't actually been that bad. And that most of us have not had to change our habits much to cope.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
It turns out economic output was never a good excuse for the West's (and particularly USA's) high per-capita greenhouse gas emissions in the first place.
This is not really surprising.
Apart from people generally not changing their habits during a recession, there is the fact that the recession itself didn't hit all countries with the same intensity. Some (e.g. China, India and South Korea) are still doing well, and as a consequence, their greenhouse emissions haven''t decreased much.
While the developed countries did diminish their total emissions (e,g, UK, Japan, US, Germany), there is still the fact that the manufacturing sector ha been mostly transferred (outsourced or lost to) to the developing markets.Not surprising that the overall emissions have not dropped, at least in the same proportions that it increased during economic expansion.
150 nations + not all going in the same direction. Do the math.
Simple. If the three billion poorest people go from earning $3,000 per capita per year to $6,000 per capita per year, the economy can slump and carbon increases.
Gently reply
I drove the same amount as I did the year before. I did eat and spend less though. No girlfirend anymore. I guess it wasn't enough to make a positive impact on the environment? Hehehehehe! Just screwing around folks.
Perhaps.. Most of our greenhouse gas emissions come from our 'essential' use?
I might not be able to afford a new shiny thing. But I do still need to travel to work, heat my house and buy food.
Just like I did before the downturn.
Of my total usage, luxury items were probably a small percentage. So cutting out those only cuts out a small percentage.
(well its as good as any other theory I've read)
My guess is, that the effects of the recent economic downturn has yet to be realised - it's been kicked down the road by the creation of trillions of dollars and increased debt to offset its effect
Seriously, don't worry about debt, it's all hype, nothing to worry about... When wheels start spinning again, and you're not paying for two wars, that debt will be gone in no time...
Keep in mind that interest rates are so low, that take loans and investing it in education, research, infrastructure, etc. is very likely to pay of, big time. With a much bigger interest than you're charged for borrowing the money (which is practically free today).
Anyways, just my two cents... Keep in mind that when the state invests in people, that pays off because people pays taxes. And not bank can offer the same kind of investment.
We all know people who are suffering terribly due to the economic crises. But, the reality is that despite all the (understandable) hysteria most people did not lose their jobs. And in a lot of cases people's economic circumstances did not change to the point where they were going hungry. So while lots of them are spending more frugaly now, I'm not too surprised that for most it is a case of business as usual. The vast majority of people still have to get to work and do their jobs - and physics is not affected by the economy - your car still uses the same amount of fuel. Etc, etc, etc.
It's a model. A model is a hypothesis. The "results" are correlations and as we all know, correlation is not causation.
Meanwhile, can someone explain what this means ...
York revealed that the rate of reduction in carbon dioxide emissions was slightly more than half the rate of carbon release when the economy was booming.
Until they start asking the half of America that pays no income tax to start contributing something, or to sacrifice some services, the teensy amount they can raise by asking the one percent tthat pays the most (and receives little in return) to pay more won't even be a drip in the bucket.
Bolstering the economy by theft only goes so far.
My theory is that between all the hot CO2 coming out of the economists, plus the off-gassing of freshly printed money, greenhouse gases are expected to increase during a downturn.
Log in or piss off.
Americans are so obsessed with the idea that cutting down CO2 emissions would also cut down the economy.
That is basically a brain dead idea.
Lets see where CO2 is coming from:
o heating of houses (coal/gas/oil)
o heating and cooling of houses (electricity)
o cars / trucks
o power plants (coal/gas/oil)
o cargo ships / diesel trains
o and everything that uses electricity, but the prime source is the plant where that electricity is produced
o industries with a huge energy hunger like steel plants / or any other factory that partly or in whole produces its own power (glass or porcelain producers, brick producers etc.)
Now we have to look what kind of industries or businesses are effected in an economic crisis and how much that does affect the energy consumed.
Do houses need less heating or cooling? Or do people change their cooling/heating habits during a crisis? Is there a significant different amount of homeless people during a crisis (wich don't power their own flat)?
Same for cars, commuting, trucks with goods etc. etc. etc.
I would say there is only a small group of industries that is affected by the crisis (look whose shares are dropping and whose are rising). And even if a factory is laying off 10% of its staff, I doubt it is directly reflected in 10% energy savings and CO2 reduction.
As far as I know the american economy is far over 70% based on services. So only the remaining 30% are industries and manufactoring etc. To reduce CO2 emissions by 15% you would need an effect/crisis that drops the 30% above significantly. I doubt a change in services (people employed, people buying a service etc.) has any noticeable effect on CO2 emissions.
And finally: no one is asking the USA to cripple their economy. We only ask to switch to more efficient machines, better insulation, more efficient means of transportation, burn less oil and build up a better grid. All those activities would create a lot of jobs and instead of having a crisis you would have a boom.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
People need to get to work and people tend to drop things like air conditioning and most energy usage after going out to eat and new appliances vehicles etc. The overall effect is that what people tend to cut first during a recession are large purchases, like a new refrigerator/washer/dryer/car that would have been more efficient than the one they're now keeping. The old vehicles/appliances continue to put out a higher amount of CO2 and there is a noticeable delay in the decline of production after demand for a product has gone down, meaning that the CO2 from manufacturing is still present for a time. The notion that CO2 emissions would drop significantly during a recession doesn't really make a lot of sense to me to be honest. When you look at it on the micro scale instead of the macro scale it's hard to identify changes in behaviour that would result in a large decrease in CO2 production.
There is no memory shortage. yes I have heard of XFCE. Go away.
This - from the Economist http://www.economist.com/node/21563343 :
Only 8% of households pay no federal tax at all...
For the more numerate among you: a progressive income tax + a lot of poor people = many people paying little or no income tax. They still pay all sorts of other taxes.
Also, what proportion of serving members of our armed forces come from families in the "47%" - do you think it's proportional to the population as a whole or perhaps the poor are hugely over-represented here?
Asymmetric effects of economic growth and decline on CO2 emissions (full text).
It appears to be open access.
In other news, US energy-related CO2 emissions are now at a 20 year low.
The credit is split between cheap, fracked natural gas replacing coal and herbicide-resistant GM crops needing less plowing (and thus lower tractor fuel use).
US CO2 emissions per capita are now lower than they have been since at least 1973.
Global Warming is Junk Science. Why does it get posted to Slashdot? Why does a tag exist for this crud ? I would say its to gather all the stupid people into one thread, but its seems otherwise intelligent people take this claptrap seriously. http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/314680/get-lost-rich-lowry - - - Global Warming is Junk Science !
Coal has remained cheaper during most of this period, and half of all US energy use is for heating and cooling buildings, with little incentive to get new high mpg cars, since people can't afford new cars.
Here endeth the lesson.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
whining communists!
I thought this was already debunked. People still believe this? lol
Every dollar you and all your 300 million americans pay in income tax (federal) goes directly to pay back debt, ie it goes directly to the BANKS.
So if the govt had zero debt, they wouldnt need your income tax.
Get a clue, income tax was only invented to pay for the war, the WW1 WW2 is OVER.
Give us our fucking money, govt theives.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.