Star Ledger prints climate opinion piece by science denier Ellie Whitney. Does Star Ledger deny science that US CO2 has plunged, that US leads world in CO2 reduction, that US CO2 is heading even lower, that CO2 of other countries is same or higher?

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2/7/13, "Opinion: Carbon fee would put the brakes on global warming before it's too late," Times of Trenton guest editorial, by Ellie Whitney, via Newark Star-Ledger

"To avoid utter devastation, CO2 emissions must stop rising no later than 2017, and thereafter fall rapidly every year. 

Only by mounting a major effort can we meet this challenge. Beginning right now, the U.S. Congress can enact legislation to curb the CO2 emissions that are the principal cause of global warming."...

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 6/4/12, “Climate change stunner: USA leads world in CO2 cuts since 2006,” Vancouver Observer, Saxifrage




“Not only that, but as my top chart shows, US CO2 emissions are falling even faster than what President Obama pledged in the global Copenhagen Accord.… Here is the biggest shocker of all: the average American’s CO2 emissions are down to levels not seen since 1964 --over half a century ago. …Coal is the number two source of CO2 for Americans. Today the average American burns an amount similar to what they did in 1955, and even less than they did in the 1940s. …It is exactly America’s historical role of biggest and dirtiest that  

makes their sharp decline in CO2 pollution so noteworthy

and potentially game changing at the global level.”...

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6/26/12, “The Incredible Shrinking Carbon Pollution Forecast – Part 2,” switchboard.nrdc.org, Dan Lashof
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.“Back in February I posted about a surprising development: Despite the failure of comprehensive climate and energy legislation in 2010, U.S. carbon pollution emissions and projections of future carbon pollution have been coming down ever since....

While there has been some press coverage of these facts (see here and here) I continue to find that most people are surprised to learn about this progress….


 

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 8/16/12, “AP IMPACT: CO2 emissions in US drop to 20-year low,” AP, Kevin Begos   

“In a surprising turnaround, the amount of carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere in the U.S. has fallen dramatically to its lowest level in 20 years, and government officials say the biggest reason is that cheap and plentiful  natural gas has led many power plant operators to switch from dirtier-burning coal.

Many of the world’s leading climate scientists didn’t see the drop coming, in large part because it happened as a result of market forces rather than direct government action against carbon dioxide....

Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State University, said the shift away from coal is reason for “cautious optimism” about potential ways to deal with climate change….  

In a little-noticed technical report, the U.S. Energy Information Agency, a part of the Energy Department, said this month that energy related U.S. CO2 emissions for the first four months of this year fell to about 1992 levels. Energy emissions make up about 98 percent of the total.
 

The Associated Press contacted environmental experts, scientists and utility companies and learned that

virtually everyone believes the shift could have major long-term implications for U.S. energy policy.”…
 

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1/15/11, “Recession Special: Cleaner Air,“ NY Times, Matthew Wald

“What the government has not mandated, the economy is doing on its own: emissions of global warming gases in the United States are down.
 
According to the Energy Department, carbon dioxide emissions peaked in this country in 2005 and will not reach that level again until the early 2020s.”…

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4/21/12, "Why Emissions Are Declining in the U.S. But Not in Europe," NewGeography.com, Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus

"It wasn't that long ago that the U.S. was cast as the global climate villain, refusing to sign the Kyoto accord while Europe implemented cap and trade.

But, as we note below in a new article for Yale360, a funny thing happened: U.S. emissions started going down in 2005 and are expected to decline further over the next decade, while Europe's cap and trade system has had no measurable impact on emissions. Even the supposedly green Germany is moving back to coal.

Why? The reason is obvious: the U.S. is benefitting from the 30-year, government-funded technological revolution that massively increased the supply of unconventional natural gas, making it cheap even when compared to coal.

The contrast between what is happening in Europe and what is happening in the U.S. challenges anyone who still thinks pricing carbon and emissions trading are more important to emissions reductions than direct and sustained public investment in technology innovation."

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6/22/12, “U.S. cuts greenhouse gases despite do-nothing Congress,” CNN, Steve Hargreaves 

• “Even factoring in a stronger economy, forecasters see  
•  greenhouse gas emissions continuing to fall….

Others take the U.S. success in reducing its energy sector emissions as a sign that its fragmented, state-based, regulatory approach has worked better than Europe’s market-based cap-and-trade approach.”

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News of US CO2 plunge has been described as:

• “Surprising,“
• “little noticed,“
• “dramatic,“
• “stunner,“
• “most people are surprised to learn,“
• “quiet but tremendous progress,”  
•  “major long term implications,”
• “game changing,”
• “shocker,”
• “huge contrast to the forecast.”

 
 
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