U.S. CO2 emissions grow
Source: Washington Post
The Obama administration appears to be losing ground in its efforts to cut U.S. emissions of greenhouse gases, according to new government figures that show pollution levels rising again after several years of gradual decline.
Two quick notes on this issue. First, CO2 is not pollution, no matter how strenuously media, some elected officials, the environmental industry, and Leo DiCaprio protest. CO2 is, and always has been, plant food. It is an essential chemical component of all life on this planet.
Second, while it has taken over 6 years to get the economy back on a recognizable growth track (and even the current growth is extremely slow and punctuated by repeated setbacks), I have said for years that, when the economy began to grow again, CO2 emissions would grow right along with it.
As an aside, I have also consistently said that bragging about reduced CO2 emissions – that were reduced because of a badly lagging economy – was a poor means of building American economic or environmental credentials. Trashing your economy to “save the environment” is extremely short-sighted as struggling economies and poor people don’t tend to make good long-term, conservation-based, policy and management decisions.