China is No. 1 again, this time in CO2 emissions
Dense smog over Beijing, November, 2005
(Credit: NASA satellite image)China is now No. 1. Not just in population. Nor just in economic growth among major nations. Not just in construction cranes or the building of coal-burning power plants. It's now the reigning champ of CO2 emissions. Despite the best efforts of numerous American utility companies and widespread use of air conditioning, SUVs and our own splurge in coal-burning, the United States has sunk to No. 2 in the CO2 derby.
The first to declare China the CO2 champ is the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency. Its estimates today show China put out 6,200 million tons of CO2 last year. The U.S. could only manage 5,800 tons. China's huge population gives it the CO2 lead because it still only produces 25 percent as much CO2 per capita as the U.S. This means continued economic growth for China will bring even more CO2.
The build-up of pollution from China has been foreseen, but topping the U.S. was expected to take a few more years. Back in 2005 air pollution over Beijing reached maximum measured levels. People were told to stay inside. NASA also reports China has high rates of respiratory disease and acid rain.
American efforts to produce more electricity and thus burn more coal remain prodigious. More than 100 new coal-burning plants are being proposed in the U.S. Even that'll not be enough to regain our CO2 emission lead.
The reason we care is not just daily health, or acid rain. CO2 is the leading greenhouse gas and worsens the global warming of the atmosphere.
"There is also little disagreement that levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have risen from about 280 parts per million by volume in the 19th century to about 387 ppmv today. Finally, there has been no question whatever that carbon dioxide is an infrared absorber (i.e., a greenhouse gas--albeit a minor one), and its increase should theoretically contribute to warming. Indeed, if all else were kept equal, the increase in carbon dioxide should have led to somewhat more warming than has been observed, assuming that the small observed increase was in fact due to increasing carbon dioxide rather than a natural fluctuation in the climate system. Although no cause for alarm rests on this issue, there has been an intense effort to claim that the theoretically expected contribution from additional carbon dioxide has actually been detected." - Richard S. Lindzen, Ph.D. Professor of Meteorology, MIT
-Carbon Dioxide (CO2) = about 0.038% of the atmosphere.
-Carbon Dioxide accounts for somewhere between 4.2% and 8.4% of the greenhouse effect.
-Water accounts for about 90-95% of the greenhouse effect.
It has not been proven that increased CO2 is causing warming. "Man-Made" Global Warming is an unproven theory.
The Anti "Man-Made" Global Warming Resource
http://z4.invisionfree.com/Popular_Technology/index.php?showtopic=2050
My point in all of this is that CO2 does NOT cause climate change; I am not arguing that a change in the climate might be occurring. The climate on earth changes all the time and that global change is caused by the Sun (a new NASA finding). All life on the planet is carbon based, CO2 is part of our food chain, and it is not a pollutant. The biggest ?green house gas? is water vapor. If climate change is caused by human activity then we would need to start eliminating life on the planet, yes this is absurd, so is the assertion that humans are causing climate change. It just is NOT the truth.
Science fact 2+2=4 a scientific fact is a truth that never changes can be reproduced by anyone every time.
Additional information http://www.InteliOrg.com/co2_climate_change.html