Brad ArnoldApr 16th, 2009 - 07:58:54

Cut greenhouse gas emissions by 70%, huh?

The world's emissions of the main planet-warming gas carbon dioxide will rise over 50 percent to more than 42 billion tonnes per year from 2005 to 2030 as China leads a rise in burning coal, the U.S. government forecast on Wednesday. China's coal demand will rise 3.2 percent annually from 2005 to 2030, the Energy Information Administration said in its International Energy Outlook 2008. --Reuters, 26 June 2008

Any carbon diet strategy would be dependent upon clean coal:

'The vast majority of new power stations in China and India will be coal-fired; not 'may be coal-fired'; will be. So developing carbon capture and storage technology is not optional, it is literally of the essence.' --'Breaking the Climate Deadlock,' Tony Blair, June 26, 2008

But, Vaclav Smil, an energy expert at the University of Manitoba, has estimated that capturing and burying just 10 percent of the carbon dioxide emitted over a year from coal-fire plants at current rates would require moving volumes of compressed carbon d ioxide greater than the total annual flow of oil worldwide -- a massive undertaking requiring decades and trillions of dollars. 'Beware of the scale,' he stressed.'

By the year 2050, the Census Bureau projects that our population will be around 420 million. This means per capita emissions will have to fall to about 2.5 tons in order to meet the goal of 80% reduction. It is likely that U.S. per capita emissions were never that low – even back in colonial days when the only fuel we burned was wood. The only nations in the world today that emit at this low level are all poor developing nations, such as Belize, Mauritius, Jordan, Haiti and Somalia.' --'The Real Cost of Tackling Climate Change,' WSJ

'I know of no realistic person who thinks carbon dioxide emissions are going to do anything but grow. Most European countries are not meeting their emissions goals, and of the ones that have, it's because their economies are collapsing. In the United States, this notion that we're going to reduce our emissions by 80 percent is pure fantasy.' --Pete Geddes, Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment, 2 April 2008

'Japan, like the European Union, hasn't let its failure so far to meet Kyoto emissions-reductions targets stop it from setting even more ambitious goals, like a 50% reduction in GHG emissions by 2050. But how to do that? If getting within shouting distance of Kyoto's targets could cost Japan $500 billion, how much would it cost to cut emissions twelve-fold more?' --Keith Johnson, WSJ, 19 March 2008

'I'm going to tell you something I probably shouldn't: we may not be able to stop global warming. We need to begin curbing global greenhouse emissions right now, but more than a decade after the signing of the Kyoto Protocol, the world has utterly failed to do so. Unless the geopolitics of global warming change soon, the Hail Mary pass of geoengineering might become our best shot.' --Bryan Walsh, Time Magazine, 17 March 2008

'The alternative (to geoengineering) is the acceptance of a massive natural cull of humanity and a return to an Earth that freely regulates itself but in the hot state.' --Dr James Lovelock, August 2008

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ZammyApr 16th, 2009 - 12:32:45

Global warming is not man made, and CO2 carbon dioxide has nothing whatsoever to do with it. So there's no justification to harness and/or wreck the world's economy to stop it. Unless there's a worldwide referendum of 90% of all people polled agreeing to sacrifice to 'save the temperature by 0.5 degrees...', unless that happens there's no moral justification to try to stop it in a gigantic worldwide effort. Stop the madness of government and the media telling us whats good for us.

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MikeApr 16th, 2009 - 18:07:58

The study is based on climate model projections, not proven science or proven facts. Take a look at the UK met Office data hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcrut3/diagnostics/global/nh+sh/

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