Global Warming Emissions Jump 292 Percent in Rocky Mountains
The Montana based New West News is reporting Global Warming Emissions Jump 292 Percent in Rocky Mountains.
The Rocky Mountain region saw a 292 percent increase in carbon dioxide emissions between 1960 and 2001, the largest percentage increase of any other region in the country, according to a study released Tuesday by the Montana Public Interest Research Group.
The report, titled, “The Carbon Boom” uses data from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory to track carbon dioxide emissions and fossil fuel combustion across the country.
The Rocky Mountains cover a few states, not just Montana.
- CO2 emissions growth 1960 to 2001:
- Colorado: 221%
- Idaho: 98%
- Montana: 202%
- New Mexico: 218%
- Oregon: 144%
- Utah: 194%
- Washington: 173%
- Wyoming: 575%
The numbers above show an alarming pollution rise in a mere 40 years, especially in Wyoming with an almost six-fold increase in emissions. Honestly people in these areas should be ashamed of themselves. The rest of the world is working hard to reduce carbon emissions. The UK and European nations are routinely chastised for either not decreasing their emissions enough, or for increases as small as 1%, so for a state like Wyoming to increase its emissions like that is nothing short of irresponsible.
However, while the article’s focus is the rocky mountains, the report looks at the US as a whole.
Between 1960 and 2001, U.S. emissions of carbon dioxide almost doubled, jumping from 2.9 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide in 1960 to almost 5.7 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide in 2001, an increase of 95 percent.
So while the Rocky Mountain states might be extreme examples, it’s seems clear that it is US policy to heat the Earth, with terrifying consequences. I have often posited here that we can not trust our governments to help us, but I am starting to suspect that we can’t even trust them not deliberately work to bring about the end of the world: It sure looks that way eh.
So, we may well ask, “What is to be done?“.
When I was a kid my mum would order me to tidy up my play area, no matter that, often as not, the toys littering the space were my sisters’ or brother’s or friends’.
“Oh mum,” I’d complain, “but it’s not my mess.”
“I don’t care whose mess it is, you have arms and legs, you can clean it up,” would be her inevitable reply.
So people, I implore you. We can’t force rogue polluters into line, but we can offset their impact by cleaning up some of their mess for them. What we can’t do is sit around and complain that its not our mess to clean up. Planetary heating is a global problem. We all need to work hard to avert a likely catastrophe. Moaning about whose mess it is is a problem we can address once we have cleaned it up. First we must start to be the change we want to see in the world. — DS
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