{"id":6286,"date":"2011-11-05T00:01:41","date_gmt":"2011-11-05T07:01:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2011\/11\/05\/strangling-the-planet\/"},"modified":"2011-11-05T00:01:41","modified_gmt":"2011-11-05T07:01:41","slug":"strangling-the-planet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2011\/11\/05\/strangling-the-planet\/","title":{"rendered":"Strangling the Planet"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since I first moved to Portland, 32 years ago, I have noticed changes in the climate.  Summers are getting hotter, and winters are getting colder.  Three out of the last four years have set records for both summer heat and winter cold.  The changes have been subtle, but they have been clear.  We need to stop strangling the planet, before the planet strangles us.  Instead we are setting records in the emission of greenhouse gasses.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\"5greenhouse-gases\"The global output of heat-trapping carbon dioxide has jumped by a record amount, according to the US department of energy, a sign of how feeble the world’s efforts are at slowing man-made global warming<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The figures for 2010 mean that levels of greenhouse gases are higher than the worst case scenario outlined by climate experts just four years ago<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

"The more we talk about the need to control emissions, the more they are growing," said John Reilly, the co-director of MIT’s Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change.<\/p>\n

The world pumped about 564m more tons (512m metric tons) of carbon into the air in 2010 than it did in 2009, an increase of 6%. That amount of extra pollution eclipses the individual emissions of all but three countries, China, the US and India, the world’s top producers of greenhouse gases<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

It is a "monster" increase that is unheard of, said Gregg Marland, a professor of geology at Appalachian State University, who has helped calculate department of energy figures in the past.<\/p>\n

Extra pollution in China and the US account for more than half the increase in emissions last year<\/strong>, Marland said\u2026 [emphasis added<\/em>]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <Common Dreams<\/a>><\/p>\n

I\u2019m more worried about India and the US than I am about China.  The Chinese are forging ahead of the rest of the world in green energy technology.  India seems unwilling to cooperate.  The Obama administration tried to make inroads, but was blocked by Republican filibusters in the Senate.  Now the Obama administration seems more interested in the jobs that the production of dirty energy can create than protecting the planet.  Even worse, Republicans are doing their best to emasculate the EPA.<\/font><\/p>\n

We need to institute a carbon control program.  Personally, I prefer a carbon tax to cap and trade, because the proceeds can be invested in green energy R&D.  In addition, we need to move the subsidies, currently wasted on big oil, gas, and coal, to support green energy.<\/font><\/p>\n

Of course some will argue that it does no good for us to clean up our carbon, unless other major polluters do too, but if enough nations agree to both reduce their carbon emissions and embargo the goods and services of those nations who refuse to do so, other nations will fall into line.<\/font><\/p>\n

I would also see more research directed at developing fusion.  It is clean, and once we reach the threshold,  where we get more energy out than we put in, we will have a virtually limitless supply of clean energy.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Since I first moved to Portland, 32 years ago, I have noticed changes in the climate.  Summers are getting hotter, and winters are getting colder.  Three out of the last four years have set records for both summer heat and winter cold.  The changes have been subtle, but they have been clear.  We need to […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6286"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6286\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}