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DelightMachine -> RE: Global Warming: Some good news (5/29/2006 5:59:14 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: meatcleaver
Energy consumption not GDP!!! The average American consumes twice as much energy as the average European. It is energy consumption that is causing global warming, not a country's GDP. The two don't neccessarily correlate.
You know what? Essentially, I agree with you. I agree that, per capita, the U.S. emits more greenhouse gases.
I also agree that we should have higher prices as the best way of conserving energy. I've said that in earlier threads.
But the reasons for the U.S. having high rates of per capita greenhouse gas emissions aren't because we're all driving SUVs. My point was that if a country is producing more, then it naturally will have more greenhouse gas emissions. Bigger economies tend to have more pollution, at least in some ways. I really don't think you read too closely, meatcleaver.
Actually, and read closely now, when I did a little tooling around the Web, I found this chart on Wikipedia which compares greenhouse gas emissions and GDP. It shows that even when you consider increased production in the U.S., we use more energy:
I can't reproduce the chart here so go to that Web page to see the exact details, but this gives you an idea:
Rank / Country / GDP (milUS$) /CO2 emissions/GDP per Emissions
-- European Union / 13,926,873 / 3,682,755 / 3.782
14 Japan / 4,799,061 / 1,203,535 / 3.987
39 United States / 12,438,873 / 5,872,278 / 2.118
38 Canada / 1,098,446 / 517,157 / 2.124
41 Australia / 692,436 / 356,342 / 1.943
(Sorry, I can't line up these columns.)
CO2 emissions aren't all greenhouse gas emissions, but they're the most important part. The European Union average ranks between #15 and #16. The U.K., by the way, ranks #13. Top three are Switzerland, Sweden and Iceland.
Producing more is extremely important, not just for what it does for that country's citizens, but for people elsewhere, too, who benefit from it. I think it's natural that if we're producing more and richer than, say, the European Union, we're going to have more of these emissions.
quote:
For example, gas prices in America are more than twice as cheap as the EU. That alone encourages consumption and waste. There is waste in Europe which show's Europe's energy prices aren't high enough. It is only price hikes on carbon fuels that will encourage reduced use and companies to pursue new technologies.
Some things to keep in mind when you talk about waste. BTU consumption per capita in the United States is actually down to 340 from its height of 360 in the late 1970s:
Figure 2. Energy Consumption per Person
Also, see Figure 3, which points out that the amount of energy used to create a given amount of GDP "in 2004 was 49 percent below that of 1970."
Over time, we're using less energy to produce more in the United States (I think the same thing is true in Great Britain, and it's certainly true for greenhouse gas emissions). See Figure 63 on the same page.
Waste? Yeah, but put it in perspective: The United States is a big country, like Canada and Australia. Like Japan, a lot of the European Union is very compact with very high populations. That's going to mean less driving per person in the EU or Japan.
That said, we could certainly do more: We could increase nuclear power production from about 20 percent of our electricity generation to up over 50 percent, which it is in France. We could make it even more expensive for people to ride in unnecessary SUVs, and we could do other things. The point of my OP was that it's very do-able.
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