Trump hates the environment, right?
 

can’t imagine how we pulled that off, without the frenchvtelling us what to do.
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Are you telling us Trump is responsible for the decline?
Is he doing this by "bringing" back coal?
Last week, in an interview with Fox News, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt claimed: "We are leading the nation — excuse me — the world with respect to our CO2 footprint in reductions."

The Washington Post fact-checked this claim and rated it "Three Pinocchios," which means they rate the claim mostly false. They further wrote that Pruitt's usage of data appeared to be a "deliberate effort to mislead the public."

I agree that this is a nuanced issue, but the data mostly support Pruitt's claim.

According to the 2017 BP Statistical Review of World Energy, since 2005 annual U.S. carbon dioxide emissions have declined by 758 million metric tons. That is by far the largest decline of any country in the world over that timespan and is nearly as large as the 770 million metric ton decline for the entire European Union.


By comparison, the second largest decline during that period was registered by the United Kingdom, which reported a 170 million metric ton decline. At the same time, China's carbon dioxide emissions grew by 3 billion metric tons, and India's grew by 1 billion metric tons.

Thus, I don't think it's the least bit misleading to claim that the U.S. is leading the world in reducing carbon dioxide emissions.

The Washington Post gets into per capita emissions, and indeed despite the decline, U.S. per capita emissions are still among the highest in the world. However, the Washington Post story claimed: "The United States may have had the largest decrease in carbon emissions, but it is still the largest per capita emitter."

That's not accurate either.

According to World Bank data, U.S. per capita carbon dioxide emissions rank 11th among countries. So, we are not the largest per capita emitter, but we do emit 2.2 times as much on a per capita basis as China. But, China has 4.3 times as many people, and that matters from an overall emissions perspective. China's lower per capita carbon dioxide emissions are more than offset by its greater population, so China emits over 70% more carbon dioxide annually than the U.S.

The story quoted Pruitt a second time: “We have reduced our CO2 footprint by over 18 percent, almost 20 percent, from 2000 to 2014.” The Post also disputes this claim, citing EPA numbers that stated "energy-related CO2 emissions" have fallen by 7.5% since 2000.

I am not sure why anyone is using numbers from 2000, as U.S. carbon dioxide emissions continued to rise until 2005. That's when they began to fall. Between 2005 and 2017, U.S. carbon dioxide emissions fell by 12.4% on an absolute basis and by 19.9% on a per capita basis. The per capita number is certainly consistent with Pruitt's claims, though the date range isn't.

When the Post asked the EPA about the discrepancy, a spokesperson said Pruitt “was referencing the CO2 footprint from energy-related industries,” based on a report from the Association of Air Pollution Control Agencies that says that “per capita energy-related carbon dioxide emissions were down 18.1 percent on average nationally.”

While the U.S. had the highest overall decline in carbon dioxide emissions, we didn't have the largest percentage decline. Many European countries experienced declines of 20% to over 30%. At the same time, China's carbon dioxide emissions increased by 50%, and India's increased by 88%.

I understand that the Washington Post wants to push the fact that the U.S. is still a high per capita emitter, but that doesn't contradict the points that Pruitt made.

Finally, one item left unsaid was the reason U.S. emissions have declined. It is no coincidence that U.S. emissions started to decline in 2005. That was the year U.S. shale gas production began a decade-long growth spurt.

Renewables also contributed, but the vast majority of the emissions decline in the U.S. can be attributed directly to natural gas substituting for coal in the power sector. (See Don't Blame Renewable Energy For Dying U.S. Coal Industry for a deeper dive on this topic).

My verdict? Pruitt's claim is entirely defensible, and on a nuanced topic like this certainly shouldn't be considered mostly false. I think the Washington Post got this one wrong.

Your a true GOP Contortionists

Trump turned the car off Momentum driving force gained by the development of a process or course of events.

This has nothing to do with Trump but please convince yourself it does

You do realize the daily wire is a fake news site right?
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exactly......:conf:

nope, never even hinted trump gets credit. how about you respond to what i actually say?

the liberal hysterics who said we were all going to die, yet again, have eggs on their faces.

it would appear thenolanet isn’t suffering too severely, firnour backing out. the liberals and the media attacked trump for backing out. what will they say now?
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it wasn’t a daily wire study. they just reported the study. you have other data, let’s see it.
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What does the change in carbon emissions from 2005 to 2017 have to do with pulling out of the Paris Climate accord on June 1st 2017?
It proves that for some reason we were on the right track, but the effect of pulling out has yet to be seen.

Exactly.....

You are not going to die this year and your kids aren't, but Boston is fu**ed as are a lot of other low lying cities. Read the reports about global temperature trends, shrinking ice caps, crazy and more violent fires, droughts, storms; pulling out of an agreement that takes steps to slow what is coming is head in the sand thinking. But if you can believe Putin didn't order and the Russians didn't meddle in our 2016 election, then you certainly can believe Global warming is a hoax too.

that's a relief...

Well you might, judging by the white puff ball on your chin, you arent well :biglaugh::biglaugh::biglaugh::biglaugh:

I don't need other data, the entire premise of the article is laughable. If we did emit less CO2 in 2017 those changes would have been put in place years in advance. It's not like you just flip a switch and natural gas plants magically appear.

I know pulling out doesn’t always work
I have 5 kids
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so because you don’t like trump, any article that paints anything he does in a positive light, is laughable, and you can make that claim, with zero evidence to support it. that’s convenient.
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Jim, he DIDN'T DO ANYTHING YET.

Exactly, again.
"AEI credits the use of natural gas and the practice of fracking with the U.S.'s carbon emissions decrease, even though environmentalists don't consider natural gas as an "acceptable" alternative energy source akin to wind power or solar."

This is all due to a trend over the last decade+ of increasing use of natural gas, supplemented with alternative energy sources. This has NOTHING TO DO WITH PARIS OR TRUMP AT ALL, so there is NOTHING to give him credit for. If you can point to the policy or action he had that resulted in this, please do.