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Another Study Finds Earth's CO2 Emissions Have Flattened Over The Last Three Years (go.com)
An anonymous reader quotes the Associated Press:
Worldwide emissions of heat-trapping carbon dioxide have flattened out in the past three years, a new study showed Monday, raising hopes that the world is nearing a turning point in the fight against climate change. However, the authors of the study cautioned it's unclear whether the slowdown in CO2 emissions, mainly caused by declining coal use in China, is a permanent trend or a temporary blip...
The study, published in the journal Earth System Science Data, says global CO2 emissions from fossil fuels and industry is projected to grow by just 0.2 percent this year. That would mean emissions have leveled off at about 36 billion metric tons in the past three years even though the world economy has expanded, suggesting the historical bonds between economic gains and emissions growth may have been severed. "This could be the turning point we have hoped for," said David Ray, a professor of carbon management at the University of Edinburgh, who was not involved with the study. "To tackle climate change those bonds must be broken and here we have the first signs that they are at least starting to loosen."
Last week a study suggested earth's plant life is absorbing a greater percentage of global CO2 emissions -- although reductions in China could also be significant. According to the article, almost 30% of the world's carbon emissions come from China.
The study, published in the journal Earth System Science Data, says global CO2 emissions from fossil fuels and industry is projected to grow by just 0.2 percent this year. That would mean emissions have leveled off at about 36 billion metric tons in the past three years even though the world economy has expanded, suggesting the historical bonds between economic gains and emissions growth may have been severed. "This could be the turning point we have hoped for," said David Ray, a professor of carbon management at the University of Edinburgh, who was not involved with the study. "To tackle climate change those bonds must be broken and here we have the first signs that they are at least starting to loosen."
Last week a study suggested earth's plant life is absorbing a greater percentage of global CO2 emissions -- although reductions in China could also be significant. According to the article, almost 30% of the world's carbon emissions come from China.
That the rate increase is going down isn't good enough, alas. That means it's still increasing. We need a reversal, with less CO2 pumped out than what is absorbed, and we're nowhere near that yet.
Still, it's a good first sign, but we're still getting worse, not better.
Is it? It has always been touted as being very,very cheap, but it never was.
And I am sure the nuclear industry didn't factor in the long-term costs of how to store away the nuclear waste safely, for generations. Or the costs of dismantling a plant. Or of course the costs when something bad happens. 100 billion $ total cost of Fukushima disaster.
I would add that Gaddafi after seeing what happened in Iraqi decided to own up to a whole bunch of WMD that we basically didn't have a clue about and allowed them to be removed. It is highly unlikely this would have happened without the Iraqi invasion.
The problem with the invasion of Iraqi was not the invasion itself but the utter lack of post invasion planning by Bush and his fellow bunch of morons.
It's fashionable to pretend that it was all based on bloodlust but for those of us who were alive at the time, it seemed like it was the right thing to do. The decision was made with the best information at the time and in retrospect it was a mistake.
I was alive at the time, and it was a transparently stupid thing to do. It never looked like the right thing to do, and it was obvious before we even went in that it would spiral out of control. The administration sold it on lies and misinformation, and a lot of people bought it.