Driving Straight Into Catastrophe

[marmar]

Driving Straight Into Catastrophe
By Julio Godoy


PARIS, Jan 24, 2011 (IPS) - Despite repeated warnings by environmental and climate experts that reduction of fossil fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions is fundamental to forestalling global warming, disaster appears imminent. According to the latest statistics, unprecedented climate change has Earth hurtling down a path of catastrophic proportions.

The Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that the global consumption of primary energy in 2010 reached some 500 exajoules (EJ), a number just under the worst-case scenario formulated ten years ago by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The IPCC’s Special Report on Emissions Scenarios, published in 2000, calculated the worst-case scenario as 525 EJ consumed in one calendar year.

The IEA found that coal was one of the largest sources of energy consumed in 2010, comprising approximately 27 percent of the total energy consumption. Coal, one of the cheapest sources of energy, is considered the filthiest of all, as far as greenhouse gases emissions (GHGE) are concerned.

Correspondingly, the global GHGE, measured as equivalent to carbon dioxide, reached at least 32 billion tonnes last year, only one step below the most pessimistic scenario imagined by the IPCC in 2000: 33 billion tonnes of CO2. ............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=54210

[madokie]

1. self delete, wrong place sorry

[pscot]

2. Well, we won't be able to say

we weren't warned.

[Bigmack]

3. BUt you and I WILL be

able to say that "THEY" didn't listen. But "I told them so's" will be slight (can't say "cold") comfort! Ms Bigmack

[Kennah]

4. Not true

Some of us will bike there.