Klimaatverandering 92

'Global Warming: It’s All About Energy
Michael T. Klare

Finally, after years of effort by dedicated scientists and activists like Al Gore, the issue of global warming has begun to receive the international attention it desperately needs. The publication on February 2 of the most recent report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), providing the most persuasive evidence to date of human responsibility for rising world temperatures, generated banner headlines around the world. But while there is a growing consensus on humanity’s responsibility for global warming, policymakers have yet to come to terms with its principal cause: our unrelenting consumption of fossil fuels.
When talk of global warming is introduced into the public discourse, as in Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth,” it is generally characterized as an environmental problem, akin to water pollution, air pollution, pesticide abuse, and so on. This implies that it can be addressed – like those other problems – through a concerted effort to “clean up” our resource-utilization behavior, by substituting “green” products for ordinary ones, by restricting the release of toxic substances, and so on.
But global warming is not an “environmental” problem in the same sense as these others – it is an energy problem, first and foremost. Almost 90% of the world’s energy is supplied through the combustion of fossil fuels, and every time we burn these fuels to make energy we release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere; carbon dioxide, in turn, is the principal component of the “greenhouse gases” (GHGs) that are responsible for warming the planet. Energy use and climate change are two sides of the same coin.
Fossil Fuel Dependency
Consider the situation in the United States. According to the Department of Energy (DoE), carbon dioxide emissions constitute 84% of this nation’s greenhouse gas emissions. Of all U.S. carbon dioxide emissions, most – 98% – are emitted as a result of the combustion of fossil fuels, which currently provide approximately 86% of America’s total energy supply. This means that energy use and carbon dioxide emissions are highly correlated: the more energy we consume, the more CO2 we release into the atmosphere, and the more we contribute to the buildup of GHGs.'

Lees verder: http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/3998