WOOOOOOOOO! US GHG Emissions On Track To Fall 0.3% By 2012!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[hatrack]

USA! USA! USA! USA!

WASHINGTON - The chief U.S. negotiator on global warming acknowledged Wednesday the nation's glacial pace in reducing greenhouse gases and said even that might not continue in the future.

"One can argue whether it's slowing down fast enough, but it is slowing down," Harlan Watson, a State Department special envoy, told the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. "We're doing better than business as usual. That's the president's goal."

Business as usual allows the United States to release into the air each year about 6.6 million tons of carbon dioxide, methane and other gases scientists blame for heating the atmosphere like a greenhouse — a quarter of the world's total emissions.

Sens. Thomas Carper, D-Del., and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, likened the U.S. greenhouse gas emissions to a car that should first slow down, stop, then reverse course. "When is the year we're going to be able to say, 'The car is stopped?' Carper asked Watson. Watson answered that the administration was ahead of its goal for slowing the growth rate in emissions, "but I can't guarantee it's going to continue."

Emissions are growing at the rate of about 1.5 percent a year, despite the administration's voluntary climate change policies. By itself, that growth rate is expected to drop to about 1.3 percent by 2012 as industries adopt newer and cleaner technology. President Bush aims to decrease the growth rate to about 1.2 percent.

EDIT

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/global_warming;_ylt=Apyh4YNHCg1PkfTUTrKu2dNrAlMA;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl

[4_Legs_Good]

1. The growth rate is falling, not the emissions

That would be sheer folly! Actually DECREASING the amount of CO2 we put in the atmosphere. Feh! Some day we might actually be able to breathe!

david

[NNadir]

2. Errata.

The US injects six billion tons, not six million tons. A single coal plant can put out six million tons in a year.

Our news reporters are getting worsier and worster.

[hatrack]

3. Yep - AP hard not at work again

Incredibly sodden, sloppy, shitty reporting. I thought all the dumb people studied broadcast "journalism", and the smart ones worked for newspapers.

Wrong again, I guess.

[rfkrfk]

4. this is a state issue n/t

[Nihil]

5. "One can argue whether it's slowing down fast enough"

One certainly can.

> "but I can't guarantee it's going to continue."

And, just to illustrate why this might be in question ...

> The Senate panel's chairman, Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., rejected not
> only the treaty itself but also the Bush administration's
> acknowledgment that pollution is contributing to global warming.
>
> "Even if humans were causing global warming — and we are not — but
> even if we were, Kyoto would do nothing to avert it," Inhofe said.

:banghead:

If you are going to screw up the lives of my children then I want it
to start happening NOW - so that you bastards can feel the pain too.