Here’s a map of CO2 released from fossil fuels (with red and yellow marking the biggest pollution points), compiled from 2002 data by the Vulcan Project at Purdue University. It’s a map of emissions, which isn’t quite the same as airborne concentrations, but it gives a sense of where pollution happens:
Here is the map:
Via Julia Whitty, here’s a new study from a trio of Columbia psychologists that tries to settle this question. Test subjects were broken up into two groups, and each group was allowed to pick between pricier and cheaper versions of various items like airline tickets. Group A was told that the more expensive items included the price of a “carbon tax,” whose proceeds would go toward clean-energy development. Group B was told that the costlier items included the price of a “carbon offset,” whose proceeds would go toward clean-energy development. Exact same policy, just different names for each.
You can guess what happened next. In the “offset” group, Democrats, Republicans, and independents all flocked toward the pricier item. They were perfectly happy to pay an extra surcharge to fund CO2 reduction—even Republicans gushed about the benefits of doing so. Not only that, but most of the group supported making the surcharge mandatory. In the “tax” group, however, Democrats were the only ones willing to pay for the costlier item. Republicans in this group were much more inclined to grumble about how much more expensive the tax made things. Labels really do matter.
Here is the study:
tax –
At a press conference in London on Tuesday, 10 November, the IEA Executive Director Nobuo Tanaka and Chief Economist Fatih Birol presented the results of the World Energy Outlook 2009 (WEO). The WEO 2009 looks at the impact of the economic downturn on energy use, CO2 emissions and energy investment and what will be required at the UN climate conference in Copenhagen to put together an agreement that stops global temperatures rising at a price that is affordable. The WEO also focuses on the natural gas resource base, current trends and the role gas will play in the future energy mix. The book includes a review of energy in Southeast Asia, looking at this fast-growing region and its implications for global energy markets.
Here is the Executive Summary:
In the face of mounting support for “clean coal” and the billions being invested in carbon capture and storage, or CCS, technology, a new assessment from the University of Toronto’s Munk Center for International Studies has a stern warning for policy-makers: there could be dramatic unintended environmental consequences to sequestering huge amounts of carbon dioxide in the earth’s mantel.
“The politicians are saying we can do this, and the scientists are saying, ‘we don’t know,’” says Mr. Thomson, who covers provincial politics.
This is a blatant falsehood, by any definition. The Chamber has a long history of questioning the science of climate change. The Chamber’s present campaign against regulation of greenhouse gases by the Environmental Protection Agency questions the existence of global warming as well as the scientific evidence of its impacts on the public health and welfare. The Chamber promotes global warming denier books “to advance our thinking about issues of significance,” and has promoted the work of global warming denier Pat Michaels since at least 1992.
Here is Chamber President Tom Donohue’s full statement:
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce continues to support strong federal legislation and a binding international agreement to reduce carbon emissions and address climate change.
We believe that in order to succeed, any climate change response must include all major CO2 emitting economies, promote new technologies, emphasize efficiency, ensure affordable energy for families and businesses, and help create American jobs and return our economy to prosperity. The Congress should carefully deliberate on and enact legislation that meets these goals.
We also have called upon the United States to join with other nations to negotiate a new international agreement that sets binding CO2 reduction commitments for each nation, while allowing each to devise its own best path to meeting its target.
These are mainstream, commonsense views that are shared by a broad majority of the American people, the business community, and a growing number of Democrat and Republican legislators.
Furthermore, we believe that Congress should set climate change policy through legislation, rather than having the EPA apply existing environmental statutes that were not created to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. This is also the stated position of the President and Congressional leaders. If determined to proceed on its own, EPA should publicly present its finding and answer questions on the limited studies it cited, in keeping with the President’s pledge of transparency.
We oppose the Waxman-Markey bill because it is neither comprehensive nor international, and it falls short on moving renewable and alternative technologies into the marketplace and enabling our transition to a lower carbon future. It would also impose carbon tariffs on goods imported into the United States, a move that would almost certainly spur retaliation from global trading partners.
Some in the environmental movement claim that, because of our opposition to a specific bill or approach, we must be opposed to all efforts to reduce greenhouse gases, or that we deny the existence of any problem. They are dead wrong. The Chamber has in its public documents, Hill letters and testimony, as well as dozens of concrete policy recommendations, supported efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere while keeping our economy healthy.
We have vigorously supported the production and use of renewable and alternative energy. We have repeatedly supported tax incentives and credits, appropriations, and stimulus funding to promote the accelerated development of new technologies. We are leading the fight to clear the regulatory, legal and Not-In–My-Backyard roadblocks that are currently delaying promising wind, solar, nuclear, and other renewable or emissions-free energy projects across the nation.
The U.S. Chamber is the world’s largest business federation representing more than 3 million businesses and organizations of every size, sector, and region.
On C-Span’s Washington Journal this week, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), the godfather of global warming deniers, said that he will travel to the climate change summit in Copenhagen this fall to present “another view.” “I think somebody has to be there — a one-man truth squad,” he said. Throughout the program, Inhofe went through his tattered global warming denier claims: that climate change is a “hoax,” that CO2 is not a pollutant, and — latching on to the latest false right-wing talking point — that clean energy legislation will cost American families $1,700 a year. At the end of the interview, Inhofe explained what guides his views.
Although the original shipping emissions standards established in the MARPOL treaty went into effect in 2005, they were written in 1997, and getting the more stringent 2008 revisions past the onerous IMO regulatory process was a battle that exhausted the few environmental groups that even engaged in the first place. Furthermore, the rules still do not address CO2 or other global warming risks, and some observers fear it is now too late to make a push to change the rules again.
“When you look at that slow track” of revising the NOx and sulfur limits, said Jackie Savitz, a campaign director with the ocean-focused activist group Oceana, “in terms of global warming pollution we can’t have another twenty-year process. We don’t have that time to wait. So we’re pessimistic that the IMO will be the way to control global warming emissions from ships.”
But waiting has become standard for activists in this arena: the environmental provisions of MARPOL only became enforceable in the U.S. in January of this year, with the passage of the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships.
Those global warming emissions, setting aside the health impact of sulfur and nitrogen output, are themselves considerable ─ and they are growing. The April report prepared for the IMO’s environment committee, officially titled Second GHG IMO study 2009, found that combined domestic and international shipping accounts for about 3.3 percent of the world’s total CO2 emissions, more than railroad freight (0.5 percent) and airlines (1.9 percent) combined. Unfortunately, the report noted that the interaction of black carbon with snow melt “has not yet been calculated for ship emissions,” a glaring omission when viewed alongside the mounting evidence that black carbon is second only to CO2 in its global warming impact. According to an April 15 article in the New York Times on Third World sources of black carbon, the substance accounts for about 18 percent of the planet’s warming, while CO2 accounts for about 40 percent. No other pollutant comes close.
