Misuse of Scientific Data By the White House 577
Science data nerds writes "The White House is consistently and persistently claiming that the US is doing better than Europe in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. This is false — their claim is purely based on carefully selecting the only subset of the data that supports this conclusion. When all the data are used, it is plain that European emissions have declined substantially and US emissions have grown substantially. The article, and this linked analysis, debunk the White House claims."
Why is this news? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:As Fry Would say... (Score:3, Insightful)
I do think we're dealing with a bit of both here.
Re:As Fry Would say... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Ah, a nice flame war (Score:2, Insightful)
But, then again, I'm one of the
Re:As Fry Would say... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Ah, a nice flame war (Score:3, Insightful)
Is that sort of like "truthiness"?
Re:As Fry Would say... (Score:4, Insightful)
I do think we're dealing with a bit of both here.
Hanlon's razor
"Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity."
Ignorance is too kind a word for this. It's purposeful and willful stupidity.
The rising importance of media (Score:5, Insightful)
I just watched two movies: Control Room [imdb.com] (2004) about the media coverage of the invasion of Iraq and Al Jazeera's role and The revolution will not be televised [imdb.com] (2003) about the role of the private media in the coup in Venezuela in 2001. Neither of the two might be called very objective, but I see how difficult it would be to find an audience for more scientific analysis.
The common theme in both is how important the media has become. Now this is not really news, but during the last decade the media reaction has been part of e.g. military operation (embedded journalism) and there is a tremendous effort to control the pictures. Not so much to suppress any reporting, since it has become obvious that this will never work, but to control what is fed to the press. And unfortunately the press is not yet up to speed to get their informations from a wider number of sources.
Now with blogging, youtube, flickr etc. there seems to be a much wider range of possible information sources, even harder to suppress than in the past. But today we face the problem which of these sources to trust, there are just so many. There are attempts like newstrust [newstrust.net], which tries to be a sort of slashdot moderation system on top of existing news. But I think we need much more of this. Like greasemonkey allows you to attach things to websites that the authors did not intend to be there, we need the option to attach other sources to any news and have a large body of people vote on which of these sources should be taken into account. I have no clue how to realize this, but this is a typical case: the government using FUD to strengthen their position. People can react and argue with the claims, but there should be a way for these comments to reach the public, not only via sites like slashdot, but by default. With the increase of media sources and media power we have to become better at using and evaluating media as a group, not only as single viewers and readers.
Yeah (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:As Fry Would say... (Score:5, Insightful)
A reformulation of CLarks third law by J. Porter Clark: "sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice"
Lies, damn lies, and statistics (Score:4, Insightful)
Ummm, err...what? Your slant analysis is slanted (Score:1, Insightful)
In addition to selectively choosing the indicator to evaluate, Horner and the White House both
selectively chose a time period to make U.S. policy look good. Horner, who ironically has been a
staunch and regular opponent of U.S. participation in the Kyoto Protocol, chooses 1997 ("Pick
any year since the Kyoto Protocol was agreed to in 1997"), and 2000 ("In truth, Europe's CO2
emissions are rising twice as fast as those of the U.S. since Kyoto, three times as fast since
2000"). The White House settled on 2000 as their base period.
First of all, Horner gets his math wrong, even when selectively choosing 1997 as a base year.
From 1997 to 2004 (the last year for which official data are available for both regions), European
carbon dioxide emissions rose just under 8%; US emissions rose just under 7%. Thus, Horner's
claim that "Europe's CO2 emissions are rising twice as fast as those of the U.S. since Kyoto" is
false. Indeed, in absolute terms, US carbon dioxide emissions rose by a larger amount over this
period than Europe's.
Second, when the proper date is chosen as the base year, Europe does better than the United
States.10 The proper base year for comparison is 1990.
First, the Bush wasn't in the White House in 1990. This may come as a surprise to the person who wrote the article, but Bush became president in 2001. He can pretty much distance himself to stuff prior to being in office all he wants, without it being "cherry picking."
Second, the very point the administration tries to make on this particular facet is that the agreement was in 1997, not 1990, thus 1997 is what should be used. 1990 favors other countries, because industries do this cyclical thing; starting at the date the agreement was reached seems the most logical regardless, to pick any date other than then is what is "cherry picking."
Finally: "European carbon dioxide emissions rose just under 8%; US emissions rose just under 7%." So when it's all said and done, and you provide your own slant to it, you still admit it rose less in the US than it did in Europe? Yeahkthnxbuhbye, enjoy the moments in fame, 20 years from now people will laugh about arguments like yours.
Re:As Fry Would say... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:All cited articles are from the same source (Score:5, Insightful)
So? They're growing at a much, much faster rate. And the statement you chose - that it would be like saying, "We got to industrialization first, so we're the only ones who get to benefit! Oh and you have to clean up just as much as us even though we've made a bigger mess," - is telling, but it's actually the opposite of that: it's more like, "We got to industrialization, but we'll allow other developing economies to artificially pollute much more, leaving Western economies at an even greater disadvantage than they are now when competing."
One day, when India and China are serious polluters they will curb emissions.
Oh, they will? Really? Who's going to make China curb emissions? And China has [kenyon.edu] plenty [economist.com] of [wikipedia.org] problems [zmag.org] now [go.com].
So yeah, it's not "fair" if China, especially considering the force it is already, isn't held to any standards at all; or, rather, would you find it surprising that there are other factors to consider in the US not simply wanting to happily allow a severe competitive disadvantage, and frames the discussions based on that? This isn't a "Republican" issue or a matter of "misuse" of scientific data. It's an issue of pure economics. Might it be treated more gingerly by more liberal politicians? Sure. But it wouldn't be a lot more than lip service, because no matter who is in office, the economic and other threats from China in particular are very real, and emissions are but small part of that equation.
Re:All cited articles are from the same source (Score:4, Insightful)
Looking at the Data... (Score:5, Insightful)
Now here's my first problem: the accusation assumes that 2000 is not a good index year, which it is. If the Bush Administration wants to make the case that they (The Bush Administration) have been more successful than the EU in reducing emissions, then the logical start point for comparison is about when they took over which would be 2001.
Now, the article points out correctly that Greenhouse emissions tend to drop during economic slowdowns. One can see that easily by looking at the graph at the end of it (the US has a drop in 1991; the EU has a drop from 92-96; the US has another drop from 00-01). If one takes these economic slowdowns into account, then 2000, the peak of the last economy, might very well be a good starting point for the Administration to start their indexing from. Why should they have to take into account the failures of past administrations (Bush I, and Clinton) when touting the success of their administration? If, hypothetically, US emissions had decreased from 1990 to 2000 and increased from 2000 to 2004, would it be fair for the Bush Administration to take the earlier data into account and claim that they had reduced emissions? No, that would be taking credit for progress they did not make. The same principle applies reverse.
The article also brings about a perpetual flaw in any sort of greenhouse gas analysis. It completely ignores economic growth and the effect it has on increasing emissions (which it candidly points out by the way). During much of the mid-90s the US economy was booming, especially compared to the EU, so of course there was going to be an increase in emissions from 1991-2000. Additionally, these indexes fail to take into account the size of the economic growth when making the comparison. If we really want a useful measure, we should be tracking "Volume of Emissions per Unit of GDP Growth." That way we could judge economies based on their environmental efficiency rather just on pure volumetric data.
Re:Dems do it too! (Score:2, Insightful)
Likely because the evidence ont he other side is very very sparse and comes from mostly "vested" parties (ie. EXXON) or noted shills (Seitz et al). Mostly non-peer reviewed corporate paid studies.
Btw, if you didn't see Al Gore's movie, let me sum it up for you: "OHH NOOOOEZ!!! The world is coming to an end!!!"
I hadn't seen it since I avoid propaganda from btohs sides but the whole "OMG we're Fucked!" camp annoy me. At the very very worse we'll have famine and violent storms. It wont' kill us all, and I'm certain we can deal with it.
Conservatives Accepting "Climate Change" ?? (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't get me wrong, I'm glad they're finally getting what Liberals have been shouting for decades. It's just shocking that they're only agreeing with the science now.
Now all we have to do is wait 30 more years for Conservatives to accept evolution.
Re:Lies, damn lies, and statistics (Score:5, Insightful)
I would suggest that the problem is not with hard facts and statistics, but rather with a populace that is poorly educated in statistics and a media that is unwilling to actually analyze the statistics (and present that analysis) for fear of offending or boring an apathetic and relatively innumerate populace.
Re:Ah, a nice flame war (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Looking at the Data... (Score:5, Insightful)
As for GDP/CO2 ratios, your (somewhat) trusted friend wikipedia will show you that the US ranks 39th [wikipedia.org] as of 2002 -- but note that the linked chart uses 2002 CO2 emissions with estimated 2005 GDP. Slightly better than the world average, but near the bottom of developed countries. As for CO2 per GDP, the USDOE publishes those figures -- here's an xls file for metric tons CO2 per $1000 of GDP 1980 - 2004 [doe.gov] (year 2000 dollars, using purchase parity figures). I think you'll find the data useful -- it shows that the US is one of the least efficient in terms of CO2 output, particularly large nations.
2004: 138th out of 195 entities with data.
2000: 137th
1997: 139th
1990: 135th.
So, the US has made recent gains on worldwide ranking -- but really, why should the U.S. be proud of slightly improved mediocrity?
I just wanted to comment again on the validity of the current administration looking at figures from 2000 onward. Sure, they shouldn't take credit/blame for gains/losses in productivity vs. CO2 output for years prior to 2000. Then again, they shouldn't take much credit/blame for the ratio after 2000, either. Most of the policies and economic circumstances that resulted in figures for the several years after 2000 occurred before Bush took office. Not only that, but little of it is within direct control of the administration. If you want to look at the impact the Bush administration has had on CO2 outputs, you'll need to look at 2003-4 to 2010, at least.
Re:As Fry Would say... (Score:3, Insightful)
Based on the last 6 years, the White House must be the world's largest consumer of ignorance...
Re:Ah, a nice flame war (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, look, Republican Debating Techniques 101! Look folks, let's play: muddy the waters!
Suggesting that the strides being made in Europe on emissions are the ethical or environmental equivalent of the destructive pollution policies of the GWB administration, because, oh, "really both sides are biased," is an affront to science and to intelligence.
The policy of this administration has been unapologetically regressive. Bush loosened and terminated regulations through a stacked Congress and rolled back initiatives by presidential order, because corporate big business lobbyists told him environmental regulations were cutting into profits, "and that hurts the economy." This isn't even up for debate. He has related his policies and his actions over and over again to the press and in his speeches across the nation. We have so much going wrong in this country after 8 years that even if we get a Democratic president and Congress, it will take 10 years to recover policy-wise after this administration is finally run out of office.
The environment isn't high school debate club; this is serious and it matters, and unless Mars suddenly develops an atmosphere, we only have one shot at getting it right.
Re:Ah, a nice flame war (Score:5, Insightful)
Hardly. One side has most of the scientific establishment behind it. The other side has a few crackpots, "researchers" paid to provide desired data, and cherry-picked data. Only the willfully ignorant at this stage give equal credibility to both sides.
Re:They All Do It. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:All cited articles are from the same source (Score:2, Insightful)
The big problem with your analysis is that you don't find any room for compromise. The reality is that that US doesn't want a "fair" compromise becuase the most "fair" method of measuring your greenhouse gas progress is on to do it on a per capita basis. That is a really crappy scale becuase it then means a US citizen must put out the same green house gasses as someone living in africa or china. We're currently putting out 4 or 5 times as much as the average citizen in China so THAT's not going to happen. So what's the solution?
Personally I liked the economic solution where the richer countries bought the greenhouse gas credits off the poor countries. That creates an economic motivation for all countries, rich and poor, to cut emissions. You show me a better system than that and I'll happily change my mind.
Yeah you can whine and bitch about economic disadvantages but in the end is acting like spoiled children and failing future generations becuase we can't play nice with others. The George W. option of stalling and doing nothing is not a solution. We can get the polititions in a room and work out a compromise. Find some middle ground. Give some polution credits for what polution we put out now and some credtis for how many people you have living in your country, and give some more credits for your GDP. This is not rocket science, there is a solution out there.
Truely failing is doing nothing and that's what we've done so far.
don
Re:All cited articles are from the same source (Score:5, Insightful)
The thing that gets me is... (Score:4, Insightful)
The other thing that gets me is that most Americans seem to prefer to believe the Whitehouse's argument because it conveniently eliminates their need to take responsibility for their own pollution.
The third thing that gets me is that even though its actually just stating true facts, this post will probably be moderated (by an American) as 'Flamebait' or 'Troll' just so they can continue to live in denial.
Re:How blatant do the lies have to get? (Score:3, Insightful)
That's the question I kept asking through the Clinton years...
There's no comparison in scope or depth of the deceit. It's also no justification for Bush. If he's got such an exalted moral compass then isn't his the greater evil? And what about the majority of Republicans supporting those lies? Coloring yourself the party of morality and ruling by corruption and lying. Your shame is greater...or would be if you had any. A liar, a hypocrite and a fraud. Faithful to failed, incompetent leadership.
But by all means continue to strain out a gnat and swallow a camel.
Re:Dems do it too! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:All cited articles are from the same source (Score:4, Insightful)
A side note here... remember that the US is 3.7 million square miles in size (.0018234234... raw pollution per square mile) and the EU is only 1.7 million square miles in size (.0023706 raw pollution per square mile), and that China is about 3.7 square miles in size as well (.000986486... raw pollution per square mile), and finally, India is only 1.27 square miles in size (.000967354 raw pollution per square mile).
That paints a picture of the EU being in the worst shape, with the US slightly behind, and then China and India fairly close together.
Is pollution per land mass a more fair measurement?
Mind you, this is assuming that CO2eMt stands for Megatons of CO2 emitted. If I'm incorrect in that assumption, then I apologize. I'm also basing the per square mile amounts on your raw emissions amount.
Nephilium
Impeach the lying cocksucker (Score:3, Insightful)
Going Green does not hurt our economy. (Score:5, Insightful)
Which city in the rust belt has a trade surplus with China and why? Erie PA. Because GE makes the most fuel efficient locomotives on the planet in Erie and even though the Chinese have lower labor costs and environmental protection standards, the GE locmotives, while costing more to purchase, pay-back the extra cost very rapidly in fuel savings. The greenest tech is the most efficient tech and it wins economically.
So, protecting and subsidizing stupidity might protect one particular set of players in an industry (GM & Ford, for instance) but overall it doesn't do the USA any good.
Green is efficient, so Green is smart business.
There's green in going green -- Friedman [publicradio.org]
Re:As Fry Would say... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Ah, a nice flame war (Score:5, Insightful)
They say 2+2 is 4.
We say it's 18.
So, obviously, it must be somewhere around 11?
Re:Not so simple (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd say the person who can be described as ignorant is the one who responds to a simple question of fact with assumptions and abuse.
why so down? (Score:4, Insightful)
The USA will get that Mexican climate, fitting for the new owners. The old owners can move to that uninhabited area called Canada. We all get more space; the continent is kind of triangular with the big part up north.
Alaska is way bigger than Hawaii.
Opening up the Northwest Passage would be great for trade. Opening up the whole Arctic Ocean would be even better. Right now the area is a damn worthless because of the ice.
Re:Undersell, but (Score:3, Insightful)
Coal is cheap and the U.S. and China have vast reserves of it. As long as you can throw people at mining it or strip mine it, and you can stand the mercury and CO2 pollution there isn't going to be any particularly serious energy related spike there. Why do you think the U.S. and China are on a binge of building coal fired power plants. Industries dependent on oil and gas could certainly benefit from the efficiency you cite.
As an aside you have to love the Bush administration and coal industry propaganda about "Clean Coal" technology. Last time I looked this is still at least a decade away if if will be done at all. They can use the term now though in saturation advertising as they build lots of coal fired power plants, which while cleaner than they were, are still spewing vast quantities of CO2 and some mercury. Everyone thinks they are "Clean" though thanks to advertising.
Re:All cited articles are from the same source (Score:3, Insightful)
Gee... just like... every single currency on the planet. Care to explain to me, again, why that can't work?
Re:NASA Administrator (Score:0, Insightful)
As a Canadian, our economy isn't really booming or anything, but it's gone from 60 cents of yours buys a dollar, to almost par recently.
We have provinces that have 0 taxes, and are actualy sending people a cheque every year now 'Here's your share of our southern neighbours gluttony for oil'
Re:As Fry Would say... (Score:5, Insightful)
Here is the link to the numbers the pacinst uses. and [epa.gov]here is the link [iea.org] to what the white house used.
Three things to be noted. One is that the IEA publication costs a lot of money so unless some one is willing to pony up the change and do the actual comparisons, we won't know for sure. Using numbers from another study or data set does nothing to show anyone mislead anything. If anything, it is misleading of this study to suggest something that doesn't exist.
Second, the IEA numbers don't cover the same numbers the other report does. It used numbers from fuel combustion were as the EPA numbers account for all use including purpose full manufacturing of Co2.
Third and probably the most important is that the EU and the rest of the world have only been attempting to reduce Co2 emisiosn since 2000 when the kyoto accord was in effect. Comparing to anything previous is senseless and misleading. It implies there was an effort that isn't and attempt to say look, we are guilty because we done this before that.
In all, It would be note worthy to have numbers that come form the same source and cover the same data. This report doesn't do it and even attempts to use the disconnect from consistancy as a basis to refute the conclusions of a report that does use the same source and same data collections. I have contacted them by email about their apparent misleading and have not received a response from them. Also they have listed this second "refined report" after that.
Re:Lies, damn lies, and statistics (Score:2, Insightful)
To some extent, but even then I do not think that we can do enough education to fix things.
The problem is more widespread that any one single thing. Even for those of us with enough education to figure out if the study is mostly OK or not (and it pretty much took a math minor to get what little that actually is - I see no way around that either) it is difficult to find the raw data for the study. Even then, for those that run such studies the field is mature enough that subtleties in just questions and what they base things one can give them basically the outcome they want (unless one side is so overwhelmingly correct there is no way to work it out).
Take the original articles points - one of the important parts is what year you base your study on. If I had just read one I would not have thought twice about either year being the control - yet look at how different that *one* thing forces the conclusion to be? Unless I am an expert on this already (and then why am I reading consumer level information) there is no way for me to know and that is a simple thing.
Add in how funding works and you get a real mess. It's not as simple as "Bush in charge == anti-global warming, Gore in charge == truth" (or insert whichever you think is real, this is more or less the Slashdot's crowd thinking). There is a hierarchy that you go through that does not change with administration, nor can they simply refuse or deny funding to someone sufficiently famous (see several Slashdot articles for Bush tenure, New Republic for Clinton tenure - if you think "your side" doesn't do it I have some ocean front property in Arizona on the cheap). It all adds up and decent portion of the "research" is more about how to get funding than to do good science (not that there isn't good science out there - just that it normally isn't that high profile).
I do not discount statistics, however I do not base a whole lot on them. I try and group things into three classes - things I know, things I have an idea, things I know little/nothing. Things I know I usually know enough about to overcome the above issues. Things I have an idea I try and find as much as I can about and compare studies (in this particular case I'm underwhelmed by both sides - cherry picking data isn't going to convince me of either side). Things I know little/nothing about I still have opinions but tend to try and not act upon them. Unfortunately too many take the middle, and more often than not the latter, and assume that the side they choose is The Truth and go from there.
Re:The US doesn't get the credit it deserves... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:All cited articles are from the same source (Score:3, Insightful)
I would have thought that population would be a better measurement than land area. All pollution is ultimately produced for and by people, not land.
Re:Ah, a nice flame war (Score:1, Insightful)
This isn't even up for debate
Not quite sure exactly what you think "isn't up for debate" - that environmental regulation "hurts the economy"? It's true - nobody disputes that dumping all of our crap in the ocean is cheaper that properly disposing of it. Generally, having breathable air and drinkable water are worth some economic loss - the "debate" is where to draw the line between the extremes of competing with China and hugging spotted owls.
Desptite whatever FUD you hear, we have a decent economy [bea.gov] that created 176,000 [tradingcharts.com] jobs last month.
We have so much going wrong in this country after 8 years that even if we get a Democratic president and Congress, it will take 10 years to recover policy-wise after this administration is finally run out of office
That's funny; the current Republican president took an economy at the brink of recession and took it to booming in only a few years. I don't think it will take Democrats a decade to fix what isn't broken.
The environment isn't high school debate club; this is serious and it matters
True. That's why we need to stop pretending that there is 100% agreement an extremely politicized scientific issue when at least 10,000 climatologists [sitewave.net] disagree with the prevailing notion that man is responsible for the warming of the planet. It is irresponsible to pretend that we have a "consensus" or that "the debate is over" just because the prevailing truthiness supports your worldview.
Something's wrong when even the UN [telegraph.co.uk] keeps revising figures on the extent of global warming - we're down to an upper limit estimate of a 17" rise in sea levels by 2100.
I can now sit back and observe the spectra emitted by my flaming karma - but, despite the prevailing notions on Slashdot, the United States has a strong and improving economy, and it is still very much debatable whether or not we will all be the proud owners of an above-ground swimming pool.
Re:Has anyone read the report (Score:2, Insightful)
I looked at the research, and I disagree, to state that humans are warming the climate is bullshit. It's the sun (that should come as a shock
Then what environmentalists seem to forget is that all plant life (and all other life) is basically an exercise in creating global warming (read the second law of thermodynamics and realise that plant and animal life has low entropy). Plants *will* evolve into species that heat the earth. The reasons for this are so trivial it's ridiculous. If there were an algae species that's 2% more efficient than the current species and it started spreading 50 years ago, it would actually cause more global warming than we're seeing.
In short the earth will keep warming, no matter what we do (we just don't control enough of the biosphere, nor do we even control enough of ourselves, so we're convicted to stand by and watch).
Some sanity needs to be inserted into this "debate". Because there really isn't a debate. First we need consensus on a few points
1) it is happening, true, for over a 1000 years now (probably even more)
2) we're not causing it. Maybe we're accelerating it *a bit* *a tiny tiny tiny bit*. But we're not causing it. We're, despite what everybody keeps saying, a tiny blip in the biosphere. Humans have a mass of less than one millionth of several plant species (algae, moss,
3) actually changing global warming
4) there won't be ANY disasters due to global warming, not a single shoreline will change in any reasonable period of time (yes they may move over 100 years, or even 10 if the waves hit hard, however we *will* have time to prepare, and regardless of global warming, shorelines *will* move. We can't stop them). There won't be any hurricanes. There won't be an ice age in europe (I wonder who came up with that idiotic idea). There won't be desertification (in fact there will probably be less)
5) more co2 in the athmosphere will be automatically countered by more heat. That's how it works.
6) Much co2 in the air is *much* better btw, than much O2 in the air (you think you've seen flashfires ? think again, if o2 concentration were to double, we'd be in for a *big* problem at the next forest fire)
Re:As Fry Would say... (Score:2, Insightful)
Sorry, but you are wrong. First energy preservation and reduction of emissions started here in Germany in the late 80's, not because of the climate change, but because our woods were dying. That it also reduced emissions is a side effect, true, but it nonetheless did reduce them. Second, the EU has made a claim to go beyond Kyoto, the targets the EU has set itself is 20% lower than the emission levels of 1990. Kyoto was not the start, as it was known before that the CO2 levels were rising and preparations of that conference also took some time. Also the decline of the economy especially in Eastern Germany with the big brown coal power plants had a big impact on the CO2 levels. Sure, not a direct effect of the effort to reduce the emission, but it sure helped.
Also why did you take 2000 as the date of the Kyoto-protocol? According to Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] it was opened for signature in 1997. And the Kyoto protocol always compares the emissions to the standard of 1990.
But I also have to say, I don't like, that the emissions rose in the last 7 years. Even 1% more means that they rose and the target is clearly to reduce them. Seeing some of the nonsense the German administration has done in the last time (e.g. opposed a clear regulation for the reduction of emissions of the fleet produced by car makers (thanks to heavy lobbying)) is not a good sign. I don't think in a global effort it is good to always excuse your own faults by faults others made/make. It doesn't help.
Re:As Fry Would say... (Score:4, Insightful)
Reducing CO2 emissions is often a side effect of other efforts to curb pollution. Besides that, some of the EU-15 member states are the driving force behind Kyoto, and cared about CO2 emissions long before it was signed.
For instance, the main reasons for the favourable trend in Germany in the 90s are an effort to increase efficiency in power plants and the restructuring of the industry of the former DDR after reunification, and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in the UK was primarily the result of fuel switches from oil and coal to gas in electricity production and N2O emissions reduction measures in the chemical industry.
Also the shift towards smaller cars and diesel engines, driven by higher excise taxes on gas, and improvement of (legally required) catalytic converters on cars, are contributors, as well as thermal isolation subsidies and requirements for households in many EU-15 member states. The reform of the CAP in 1992 led to reduced use of fertilizer and less cattle, and the landfill waste directive to recovery of CH4 from landfills in the EU-15. (cf. generally Gugele et al, 2002 [europa.eu]) All of those efforts have CO2 emissions reduction as a side effect.
It is relevant to include recent history in evaluating track record, because countries that started to curb pollution early have to make a greater effort to achieve the same reduction (certainly if the target is set as a percentage of current emissions). The US has a long way to go to have CO2 emissions per capita equal to the EU-15, and the US does not have any excuses for high emissions: it's not a major exporter of energy-intensive manufactured goods like for instance Germany or Japan.
Re:All cited articles are from the same source (Score:3, Insightful)
If you want to make an irrelevant analogy and miss the point, fine, let's do it:
Because assuming the guy on the on-ramp keeps his acceleration pace, if the cop had waited about 30 seconds longer, he'd find that he'll be doing 130 in a 55, so the focus on the guy going 70 right now, will, in retrospect, be the significantly lesser problem. Sure, the guy going 70 should slow down, but not when there are different speed limits or no speed limits for other drivers on the freeway.
Do you understand that China and India are going to so massively surpass the US and EU in emissions that any action taken by the US and EU will be meaningless, and there is absolutely no incentive at all right now for them to stop, or even slow down the growth? You won't be able to continue blaming only the US for long. There even will be a point in your lifetime where even if all US emissions disappeared completely, total worldwide emissions will be greater than they are today.
Re:Ah, a nice flame war (Score:3, Insightful)
People who believe the Earth is flat are crackpots. People who do not believe in the germ theory of disease are crackpots. People who do not believe in plate tectonics are crackpots.
Is this really "funny"?
Re:How blatant do the lies have to get? (Score:3, Insightful)
Obviously, if his name offends you, you can safely ignore anything he says no matter if it's true or not.
Second, if you honestly think that Clinton (either of them) are cut from a different cloth than Bush (either of them), you are incredibly naive.
Obivously, if you just claim that two people are both "cut from the same cloth", you can ignore their actual actions and consequences.
Re:How blatant do the lies have to get? (Score:1, Insightful)
frankly it amazes me how much flak GW gets for things that are fundamentally legislative issues.
1) Kyoto - Congress never passed it
2) Emissions Controls to fight "Climate Change" - well, the party who is the biggest advocate for strict controls happen to control the branch of government which um..you know, passes laws to regulate those things. How is that working out?
sometimes the lack of knowledge of the duties of our respective branches of government sickens me.
Congress passes laws, Executive (President) enacts, enforces, and implements those laws or has the capability to veto them, Supreme Court decides constitutionality of said laws and whether they violate any Amendments or the spirit of the constitution.
States have all powers not expressly granted the federal. Including regulating emissions (California anyone?) for crying out loud people there are plenty of run arounds to the executive branch and yet all we sit here and do is "Bush Lied!" "Republicans Suck!" "Democrats are pansies!" "Liberal Scum!" "Idiot Conservative!"
The current political discourse says a lot for our health as a nation, we can't even stop the name calling and political maneuvering for one minute in order to solve problems we just cheer on "our side" regardless of what they do.
you want reform? it lies in Congress kids.
Re:Ah, a nice flame war (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm sorry, this is a discussion about science. Politics is down the hall, to the left.
Science does not change depending on what your political leanings are. A republican and a democrat both fall at the same rate if they jump out a window. Doesn't matter if they believe in Newton or not.
The text you've read were not written by climate scientists. They were written by people pushing a political agenda. The entire field of climate science is unanimous in stating that humans are causing climate change that will sooner or later turn catastrophic. Nobody who has studied the subject in detail disagrees with this. The only real disagreement might be on how soon, and whether it's already too late to act.
Bias (Score:3, Insightful)
Ignoring reality and pretending that the delusions of the current US administration could be true is a much worse form of bias than the one you're imagining to exist here.
Partisan morons like yourself need to get over their infatuations with certain politicians and political groups. You can always spot them; you probably noticed a few of them yourself ten years ago -- the people who went around whining like spanked children everytime there was an article about the Clinton's supreme court hearings. "How can they be so judgemental and MEAN! Grrr! Clinton is a good guy! BIAS! BIAS! Ricky... wahhhh *" The best thing for them would have been to not idolize clinton in the first place, and to simply acknowledge that he was a pig-fucking con artist. So how does it feel to be in the same moronic position with the Bush administration? Get over them -- they're a bunch of corrupt moronic assholes and they have the collective scientific knowledge of a sack of mice.
* Reference to "I Love Lucy".