Slate.com is reporting:
Weather conditions around the world this summer have provided ample
fodder for the global warming debate. Droughts and heat waves are a
harbinger of our future, carbon cuts are needed now more than ever, and
yet meaningful policies have not been enacted.
But, beyond this well-trodden battlefield, something amazing has
happened: Carbon-dioxide emissions in the United States have dropped to
their lowest level in 20 years. Estimating on the basis of data from the
US Energy Information Agency
from the first five months of 2012, this year’s expected CO2 emissions
have declined by more than 800 million tons, or 14 percent from their
peak in 2007.
The cause is an unprecedented switch to natural gas, which emits 45
percent less carbon per energy unit. The U.S. used to generate about
half its electricity from coal, and roughly 20 percent from gas. Over
the past five years, those numbers have changed, first slowly and now
dramatically: In April of this year, coal’s share in power generation
plummeted to just 32 percent, on par with gas.
America’s rapid switch to natural gas is the result of three decades
of technological innovation, particularly the development of hydraulic
fracturing, or “fracking,” which has opened up large new resources of
previously inaccessible shale gas. Despite some legitimate concerns about safety, it is hard to overstate the overwhelming benefits.
For starters, fracking has caused gas prices to drop dramatically.
Adjusted for inflation, natural gas has not been this cheap for the past
35 years, with the price this year three to five times lower than it
was in the mid-2000s. And, while a flagging economy may explain a small
portion of the drop in U.S. carbon emissions, the EIA emphasizes that
the major explanation is natural gas.
The reduction is even more impressive when one considers that 57
million additional energy consumers were added to the U.S. population
over the past two decades. Indeed, U.S. carbon emissions have dropped
about 20 percent per capita, and are now at their lowest level since Dwight D. Eisenhower left the White House in 1961.
Meanwhile, the UN and President Obama want US taxpayers to do more and continue to give China and India a "free ride."
