There is good news and bad news contained in the latest carbon emission data released by the US Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
The bad news: 2010 saw the biggest single-year jump in carbon emissions ever recorded.
There has apparently never been a 500-million-metric-ton carbon increase in a single year going back as far as 1751, which is prior to the Industrial Revolution, and scientists are shocked by it.
Not surprisingly, China led the way in increased emissions due to the country’s dependence on burning coal and gas, followed closely by the United States and India. China and India are two of the fastest growing economies in the world.
The good news, if you can call it that, is the fact that increased energy consumption and increased carbon emissions are a sign that the global economy was recovering in 2010 from the global recession of 2007-2008.
Wouldn’t it be nice if increased energy consumption and global economic recovery could be a double good news story instead of a good news, bad news story? It very well could if clean energy sources replaced carbon emitting energy sources.
Yolanda Lora Vilchis