WASHINGTON, March 3, 2007
Feds: U.S. Emissions To Grow 19% By 2020
White House Draft Report Predicts Increased Risk Of Drought, Especially In Northwest
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A polar bear rests with her cubs on the pack ice in the Beaufort Sea in northern Alaska. Polar bears are in deep trouble because of global warming. (AP/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)
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(AP)
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Interactive Global Warming The greenhouse effect, a look at the Kyoto Protocol and a history of the Earth's climate.
That projection comes from an internal draft report from the Bush administration that is more than a year overdue at the United Nations. The Associated Press obtained a copy Saturday.
The United States already is responsible for roughly one-quarter of the world's carbon dioxide and other “greenhouse” gases that scientists blame for global warming.
The draft report, which is still being completed, projects that the current administration's climate policy would result in the emission of 9.2 billion tons of greenhouse gases in 2020, a 19 percent increase from 7.7 billion tons in 2000.
Doing more than slowing the growth rate of greenhouse gas emissions, which remains the administration's stated goal, will be decided “as the science justifies,” according to the draft report. The biggest source of the gases is the burning of fossil fuels, chiefly oil, coal and natural gas.
But an authoritative U.N. report last month from hundreds of scientists and government officials said global warming is “very likely” caused by mankind and that climate change will continue for centuries even if heat-trapping gases are reduced. That report was approved by 113 nations including the United States.
It was the strongest language ever used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, whose last report came in 2001.
Despite the dire outlook, most scientists say huge sea level rises and the most catastrophic storms and droughts may be avoided if strong action is taken soon.
“We're on a path to exceeding levels of global warming that will cause catastrophic consequences, and we really need to be seriously reducing emissions, not just reducing the growth rate as the president is doing,” Michael MacCracken, chief scientist at the nonpartisan Climate Institute in Washington, said Saturday. Until 2001, he coordinated the government's studies of the consequences of global warming,
The administration's internal draft covers inventories of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, projected environmental consequences and policies to limit emissions and risk. The New York Times reported on the draft in Saturday's editions.
The White House Council on Environmental Quality has been coordinating the draft report. A spokeswoman, Kristen Hellmer, said it “will show that the president's portfolio of actions and his financial commitment to addressing climate change are working. And the president is always looking at ways to address our energy security and environmental needs.”
Hellmer blamed the delay in completing the fourth U.S. Climate Action Report on the “extensive interagency review process” the draft must go through. The report, which was due no later than Jan. 1, 2006, is required under the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change.
Among the consequences of a warming world anticipated in the report is “a distinct reduction in spring snowpack in the northwestern United States,” which supplies much of the water in that region, the report says.
Warmer temperatures expected from more greenhouse gases would only “exacerbate present drought risks in the United States by increasing the rate of evaporation,” it says.
Rick Piltz, director of Climate Science Watch, a nonprofit watchdog program, said Saturday he expects the final report will evade a full discussion of how global warming might affect the nation.
“I think it is very likely that the main reason the report has been held up for more than a year beyond the deadline is because the administration is reluctant to make an honest statement about likely climate change impacts on this country,” said Piltz, a former senior associate with the federal Climate Change Science Program.
The U.S. spends $3 billion a year to research technologies to cut global warming and $2 billion on climate research. Bush has formed a partnership with Australia, China, India, Japan and South Korea — producers of half the world's greenhouse gases — to attract private money for cleaner energy technologies. He envisions using more hydrogen-powered vehicles, electricity from renewable energy sources and clean coal technology.
Shortly after taking office, Bush rejected the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, a U.N. treaty that requires industrial nations to cut global warming gases by 2012 by an average 5 percent below 1990 levels.
He argued that cutting the U.S. share to below 6 billion tons a year, as the treaty would have required, would have cost 5 million U.S. jobs. He objected, too, that such high-polluting developing nations as China and India are not required to reduce emissions.
© MMVII The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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Best-selling author Mitch Albom on his first nonfiction work since "Tuesdays with Morrie."
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See all 64 CommentsI am a republican who is worried about our enviroment. I work for a company that also cares about the enviroment, thus our recycling efforts for Cadmium, paper, ink...etc.
I do take exception with the "lumping together" of all republicans into a category, like the Demo's we exist in a variety of genres, including some liberal. Although a liberal republican would be like a conservative democrat. I would like for us to straighten out our world, peace worldwide, and an end to the welfare state we have. Mostly though, I would like to see my tax dollars used for something more constructive that a useless war, or cradle to grave mentality. Maybe exploration of our own world and others.
If insurance companies are going to deal with this, then we are safe. I never heard about actuary as a science of the climate.
I never heard as "State farm" as a "world insurance company". To me, it is a US company ...
And maybe the poor management of Katrina by the
administration has something to do with Insurance company policy in the US. In Europe, where
the GW is more widely believed, insurance companies do not go that far ...
I've seen posts talking about a consensus among scientists. If you check for yourself, you will not find any consensus ... the only thing you will find is an "officially approved" view on the subject, but nothing based on validated models.
Here is a good starting point:
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/mostread/s_492572.html
Now, something more scary, what do we do when we run out of oil ? A more serious issue than GW to me ... and if you let me be cynical, GW might be solved naturally just because of that.
Look at this one ...
http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net
I'm saying a French scientist who belongs to the French Socialist party has changed his mind on human-caused global warming and the hysteria around it.
Here's the link again for those to lazy to scroll down and find it:
http://www.canada.com/national
post/news/story.html?id=2f4cc62e-5b0d-4b
59-8705-fc28f14da388
1. It's already happened/it's too large a problem to deal with/it can't be prevented-mitigated by Kyoto-like action. (This protects polluters' interests by attempting to further stall emissions controls.)
2. There is no one to blame. (Of course, Clinton signed Kyoto and Bush/Congress under pressure from lobby groups renounced it. Sounds like there's plenty of culpable parties.)
3. Government and politics are ineffective and unethical and we should be pessimistic about their ability to solve this problem. (This conditions people to accept the hardships to come instead getting people to work on the problem and hold bad actors accountable. It also casts aspersions on the Dems, who are likely to continue to ascend in coming elections, and who actually have been screaming about this for 10 years.)
Very good job.
Anyone with a functioning brain knows it is happening. We need to focus on dealing with it, not casting blame or arguing about its cause. If human activity is the prime factor, it is too late to do much about it by reducing emissions (which I do support, by the way). The world, as a whole, will never reduce emissions anyway as long as there is something around to burn. Even is America magically eliminated its carbon usage tonight, the damage has been done. China and India will just pick up the slack in any case.
On a side note, hydroelectricity causes great environmental damage in the formation of a lake where none used to be. Not green. What the heck is clean coal? I doubt that%u2019s actually possible. Not green. Nuke plants. Good idea. Kind of green if better ways can be developed to deal with the waste than burying it for several thousand years. What ever happened to fusion research? Now THAT was green.
Thank you for that Olympian pronouncement. Really persuasive.
The world's insurance companies, for one, disagree with you. Premiums on coastal areas are soaring. State Farm has pulled out of writing policies on large parts of the Gulf Coast. Insurance companies are liquidating real estate holdings in littoral areas. Last time I heard, actuary was a science. If you don't think so, stop paying your premiums, see what happens.
Among a few other things ...
I didn't know that plumbers were an endangered species ...
There are better reasons to cut pollution and oil waste than the questionable (yes) human impact on global warming.
I know this one article won't change the mind of Global Warming Sheep, but I found it interesting since the scientist is a socialist from France and he has changed his mind about the Global Warming hysteria.
Read and Enjoy:
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=2f4cc62e-5b0d-4b59-8705-fc28f14da388
...
Cutting emissions of course is too easy, to cheap, and too reliable a solution. Once they've developed some ridiculous plan to partially block out the sun with a giant reflector or to build nuclear plants to power co2 scrubbers, they'll be all over this issue!
This is also likely to hit us before GW ...
(global warming, not Bush).
http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net
The whole point here is you really don't know one way or the other what Al Gore is doing. You are obsessing about something you don't even know for sure. He could be doing everything he should be doing and what he is doing is here nor there. jimfinster is right, the fact is that there IS global warming and we should be greatful that Al Gore has brought it to everyones attention. I mean come on, do you really think that the guy is going to put himself in that position? Do you think he isn't going to be doing what he needs to be doing when he knows the spotlight is shining on him? Let's face it you won't be happy until he is living in a hut on the beach. I will say it AGAIN, you need to worry about yourself and do what you can do, even if it is just changing your light bulbs or buying recycled toilet paper etc.
I suggest you move on and quit wasting your energy on something you can't do anything about. Even if Al Gore wasn't doing anything, what are you going to do about it? What you can do is the things that I just suggested, at least you will know that you did something. We can't control what other people are doing, only ourselves.
The whole point here is you really don't know one way or the other what Al Gore is doing. You are obsessing about something you don't even know for sure. He could be doing everything he should be doing and what he is doing is here nor there. jimfinster is right, the fact is that there IS global warming and we should be greatful that Al Gore has brought it to everyones attention. I mean come on, do you really think that the guy is going to put himself in that position? Do you think he isn't going to be doing what he needs to be doing when he knows the spotlight is shining on him? Let's face it you won't be happy until he is living in a hut on the beach. I will say it AGAIN, you need to worry about yourself and do what you can do, even if it is just changing your light bulbs or buying recycled toilet paper etc.
I suggest you move on and quit wasting your energy on something you can't do anything about. Even if Al Gore wasn't doing anything, what are you going to do about it? What you can do is the things that I just suggested, at least you will know that you did something. We can't control what other people are doing, only ourselves.
Also, you REALLY should give up on the Gore angle. Even if he does have a hidden agenda (which I doubt), it has nothing to do with the factual basis of global warming.
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