Our editorial today notes that even though Kansas seems far away from Heiligendamm, Germany, the site of the Group of Eight summit, a proposed coal-fired power plant expansion in southwest Kansas puts the state in the center of the global debate about the summit’s signature issue, climate change. So does Kansas’ current 10th place standing among states for its per-person emissions of carbon dioxide from electric generation, owing to its 75 percent reliance on coal-fired plants, according to an Associated Press analysis.
And with President Bush agreeing with other Group of Eight leaders Thursday on a call to substantially reduce global emissions, Kansas won’t just be bringing up the rear of the parade but could be marching the opposite way, if it welcomes two or three coal plants.
Greenhouse gas emissions and their environmental effects don’t brake for state lines and national borders, so the responsibility to respond to climate change must be shared.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
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30 Comments
The U.S., about 5% of Earths population, has “contributed” about 30% of the extra CO2 in the atmosphere.
We therefore have a greater responsibilty to reduce GHG’s than other nations.
Actually, the only thing the survey shows is that the mathematical models used for these statistics is hugely skewed for states with large land areas and low populations.
As calculated for CO2 emissions, the model stipulates a per capita assignment of emissions from trace CO2 measurements. These trace CO2 measurements are a problem within itself, but that can be discussed in another thread.
A nuclear plant would be favorable instead of multiple Coal-Fired plants. But it appears that the combination of industry and government having the “will” to complete such a project is based on Environmental kooks who scare the public on the use of nuclear power.
BTW, carbon offsets, carbon credits and measurements as accomplished by the U.N.’s Kyoto Treaty is done in a very similar manner.
Great Britain which is rather small in land area (about Oregon’s size,) but highly dense in population (over 60 million) will always have less CO2 emissions than the U.S. because of the per capita formulas used.
The U.S. has an enormous land area mass and because of this is severely penalized because of the per capita model calculations put out by the highly prejudicial Kyoto Treaty.
So, if you live in a state like Kansas that is not heavily populated, get used to being “hosed” by GW Alarmist who use skewed statistical models to make their assessments.
The short version of what China says in link below is:
Climate change is made in the U.S.A.(and by other high per-capita emittors)
‘George W. Bush – climate saviour or sinner?’http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/climate-change/mg19426073.100-george-w-bush–climate-saviour-or-sinner.html“China refuses to accept emissions targets and argues that it is under no obligation to do so, since if all rich nations reduced their per-capita CO2 emissions to those of China today, there would be no climate change problem.”
Cosmos just confirmed my per capita emission model entry. China doesn’t want to play, because they are the 800 pound gorilla of the far east and who will make them?
Besides, with as much population as they have, they could substantially lower their CO2 emission standards by the methods I had outlined before.
Beware of the energy accountants and the open-arms bank depositing slips (Kyoto Treaty) making the rules on your pocketbook.
It’s more about money in their pocket than the Environment. Why else would they make such a skewed model for assigning emissions?
Greed, pure and simple.
Right… We Americans SHOULD have the HIGHEST per-capita emissions of the world, because we have the technology and resources to have the LOWEST. /sarcasm off
‘Competitors To Nuclear: Eat My Dust’ at RMI is offline (they’re changing their site), but this covers some of the facts.
‘RMI: Co-gen and Renewables, Yes; Nuclear, No’http://www.greencarcongress.com/2005/06/rmi_cogen_and_r.html
Nuclear is too expensive, and takes too much time to build.
“Nuclear is too expensive, and takes too much time to build.”Posted by: cosmos | June 08, 2007 at 01:49 PM
“Those without patience reap the unexpected whirlwind because of their haste.”
-me
If America controls it’s carbon emissions then we can put in place a carbon tariff and pressure India and China to do more to control emissions without looking like hypocrites. If those countries don’t care about the higher prices of good for products they produce that will be fine because the tariffs will finance our efforts to lower emissions.
“Those without patience reap the unexpected whirlwind because of their haste.”
Those who foolishly insist on the most expensive and slowest solution WASTE money, time, energy, and resources.
I think Dr. Huie approves of nuclear power plants for energy Cosmos.
Are you calling him a fool too? :)
“The U.S. has an enormous land area mass and because of this is severely penalized because of the per capita model calculations put out by the highly prejudicial Kyoto Treaty.”
Explain this…if the calculations are done on a per capita basis, what does land area have to do with the price of CO2 in China?
cosmos, Republican: I favor ‘recycled’ nuclear as a PART of the mix. Efficiency and conservation first. Wind, biomass, solar. THEN nuclear.
Nuclear is NOT a panacea; it is NOT a magic bullet. It is expensive. So, it comes AFTER other things have been done.
By the way – nuclear needs to be global. That opens up an interesting can of worms too.
Explain this…if the calculations are done on a per capita basis, what does land area have to do with the price of CO2 in China?
Posted by: BFAH | June 08, 2007 at 02:41 PM
I’m sure you had an answer in mind before you asked the question.
Let’s not go down that path of fallacy.
Ben,
But but but…how can bloggers argue with each other unless they get to quote OTHER bloggers out of context?
HOW DARE YOU SPOIL THE FUN???
I favor ‘recycled’ nuclear as a PART of the mix. Efficiency and conservation first. Wind, biomass, solar.Posted by: Ben | June 08, 2007 at 02:50 PM
My thoughts on agreement on that path as well Ben.
For some reason Cosmos thinks as me as the enemy just because I don’t go along the path he has chosen. That is, new forms of taxes that will be the detriment of competitive business and will bankrupt the solvency of the American family.
I’m for Green as much as the next guy. Let’s do it, but let’s do it the American way while supporting our World friends in technology to solve problems.
Using carbon credits and carbon offsets is a nightmare waiting to unfold and solves nothing.
Republican – the only way to implement this will be carbon taxes and offsets. That is a mechanism to ‘internalize’ the true costs of carbon use.
Nuclear power has to deal with provisions for the costs of waste management. Carbon taxes and offsets does the same thing with the waste from carbon.
“..the only way to implement this will be carbon taxes and offsets. That is a mechanism to ‘internalize’ the true costs of carbon use.”
Are you sure about that Ben? You want to discount the possibility of using government regulation to make it ‘extremely’ attractive for petroleum based energy providers to invest heavily into alternative energy?
How about providing incentive for combustion machinery production of all kinds being given high priority to qualify for R&D investment loans?
Or consumers who buy the equivalent of an “Energy Star” compliant mechanism being eligible for credit on their end of year taxes?
Passing local ordinances that require that new structures can only be built if they meet certain energy reduction standards as well as incentives for previously built structures qualifying for energy renovation credits?
The U.S. does not need to sign a treaty where some third world nation can takes us to World Court, then seize our overseas assets if they win the case.
You know it will happen. The “Kyoto countries” are chomping at the bit, to get their hands into the United States purse.
They are giving the city of Kyoto a bad name.
Rep – that is the mechanism that worked to reduce sulfur emissions. All of the other things on your list are also possibilities. Perhaps if Bush didn’t oppose them so much …
Perhaps after Ron Paul loses the Republican nomination, he can be the next Energy Secretary. :D
Back in the Carter era, federally-funded scientists and engineers proved wind-generation’s fundamental feasibility. But then OPEC dropped oil prices by 2/3, and wind-generation was non-competitive. However, California and the feds provided some ongoing subsidies and the result was three windfarm sites loading several hundred megawatts of electricity to the grid.
Some European nations followed suit. So did Texas, in its Great Plains section. Today, America’s oil capital generates more power from wind than any other state, and it isn’t building coal-fired plants, it’s increasing its wind generation, and it will probably have a few near-gigawatt solar generation farms within the next 10 years.
Western Kansas has plentious wind–and sun. They’re setting up a solar-generation systems in Canada, which receives less solar energy than Kansas. Non-CO2-spewing energy is the future. Even GWB has conceded this at G-8.
Why would Kansans want to be sold on a backward project? Especially since Kansans won’t get most of the power generated, slated for transmission to other states, but we will receive the heaviest doses of pollution?
Not to mention see our water supply depleted–something wind and photovoltaic solar generation would not do.
Republank,
“…new forms of taxes that will be the detriment of competitive business and will bankrupt the solvency of the American family.”
Let’s look at an example of that, and his “nightmare waiting to unfold and solves nothing”.
‘Boulder voters pass first energy tax in the nation’http://www.ci.boulder.co.us/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=6136&Itemid=169“The average household will pay $1.33 per month …Estimated energy cost savings from implementing the Climate Action Plan are $63 million over the long term.”
The tax funds a free energy audit, which shows homeowners the cheapest and best ways to SIGNIFICANTLY cut their bills.
Ohhh… what a horrible “nightmare”! I’ve gotta go to Google News, and read about all the “bankrupt” families evacuating Boulder! /sarcasm OFF
Bully for Boulder cosmos.
But guess what, they aren’t signatories to the Kyoto Treaty and have no allegiance to do the bidding of the treacherous deeds driven by the gold grabbing GW Alarmists. :)
In simpler words, they can stop the tax anytime they feel like it.
So let me see if I’ve got this…
virtually every other government on the planet has been hoodwinked by Kyoto..even people like Ms. Merkel of Germany, with a PhD in physics…
they will all suffer irreparable harm to their economies…
they have been hoodwinked by a cabal of ruthless scientists bent on world domination and economic destruction….
only a few people here in the US have been able to see through this sham…
these same folks also happen to believe in the New World Order being put in place by the Masons and the Illuminati through their front organization, the UN…
does that about encapsulate it???
Republank,
“In simpler words, they can stop the tax anytime they feel like it.”
Why should they stop it, when they started it, to meet the KYOTO goals? And it’s also beneficial.
http://www.ci.boulder.co.us/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=6136&Itemid=169“Boulder’s City Council adopted the goals of the Kyoto Protocol in 2002 to reduce greenhouse gas emissions seven percent below 1990 levels by 2012. The Climate Action Plan is a roadmap to meet the Kyoto goal …”
And the tax is scheduled to stop in 2012, same as Kyoto.
aHHH, almost missed your post before I had to leave for the weekend BFAH.
Those countries that are signatories to the Kyoto Treaty also have State Sponsored Churches and are heavily Socialistic.
Neither of which cohere to the standards of our Constitutional Government.
cya and have a pleasant weekend.
You should – you know. I won’t be here on the blogs. :D
China will surpass us in greenhouse gas emissions. It’s cool though! They’re exempt!
Joe Williams,
“China will surpass us in greenhouse gas emissions. It’s cool though! They’re exempt!”
I’m impressed. Joe Williams seems to understand that human-added CO2 stays in Earths atmosphere for a very long time.
He seems to know that our TINY 5% of Earth’s population has added about 30% of the CO2.
And that the HUGE populations of ALL of China, India, and developing Asia have only added about 12%.
So logically, he seems to believe that China should be exempt.
An impressive world map, with areas proportional to historic CO2 emissions.http://www.wri.org/climate/pubs_content_text.cfm?ContentID=2639
Like they say in China: ‘Global warming is made in the U.S.A..
Ben,
I don’t believe that you’re a “fool” as Republank’s out-of-context post suggested.
Unlike him, you understand the higher costs, and other problems re new nuclear plants. We just disagree on how much money will be available to fight AGW, and the best strategy.
And, if the “tipping point” becomes undeniable, and urgent… the new nuclear plants might even be built “at-cost”, and/or with volunteer labor?
Like a much larger version of Habitat for Humanity. That’d be ironic, considering we wouldn’t be in this huge mess if we had followed Pres. Carter’s energy plan.
And now for something different:
While listening to this week’s NPR story about tracking down the worst contributors to greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere. Turns out Canada has a comprehensive policy of GHG reporting, but the United States does not.
Wouldn’t it be something if somebody discovered that the biggest contributor to Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere was the Coca-Cola company?
Think about it. Every time you open a Coke, every time you draw a beer, every time you pop the cork on a bottle of champagne, you’re releasing tiny bubble of CO2 into the atmosphere! Smokestacks and automobiles and power plants certainly are more concentrated sources of greenhouse gasses, but 10,000 McDonald’s dispensing cola and all those fizzy bubbles have to add up, don’t they?
It’s been a century or so since Coca-Cola was invented. Over those hundred or so years, greenhouse gasses have spewed into the atmosphere. Sure, it’s easy to blame smokestack industries and most certainly they’ve contributed to global warming. But during that same time span we’ve been popping the tops off of bubbly beverages at an ever-increasing rate.
The world is not only stranger than you imagine, it’s stranger than you *can* imagine.
China’s per capita CO2 emissions are approaching those of Switzerland. Switzerland is often said to be the world richest country; China has 700 million people living on a few $/day. The difference is largely energy efficiency. If we want China to reduce its CO2 emissions, it needs to be helped to adopt modern standards of energy efficiency
I guess no one is paying attention to current affairs around Kansas these days:Deadly flooding hits the heartland while a lack of rain affects the West. And remember the tornado that hit just this year?This is a direct result of global warming and isn’t going to get better. So keep the coal fired plants, the Hummers and Bush’s appointees in the EPA from Exxon and let your children eat dirt in 50 years.But I keep thinking people are smarter than this? At least Kansans should be.