We’re No. 2!
Sparxafire!
Well, it’s official. The Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency makes it so by declaring that China has surpassed the U.S. in greenhouse gas emissions.
Wow. That was fast. Over the past few years, we have lost our grip on a lot of No. 1 standings, but we’ve been working very hard to maintain our leadership position in world pollution, so this is a partifcularly low blow.
China is a steamroller, “modernizing” or “commercializing” or “industrializing” like a slingshot out of hell. China’s reawakening is only accelerating the demand for fossil fuels there, adding pressure to the unsteady balance of supply and demand in the race to use it all up and reach the point where we all run out. Greenhouse gases follow oil consumption and here we are… out-polluted by China.
Not that the U.S. hasn’t tried. Just refusing to join the worldwide Kobe treaty was a (literal) no-brainer for the U.S. I’m particularly fascinated by the remarkable efforts of the baby boom generation. The 1973 oil shortages struck just as we were coming of age. Now, 35 years later, as our productive years on on the wane, we can all look back with astonishment at how we did not step up to the challenge… how we continued to drive gas guzzlers, invented SUVs and kicked any attempts at alternatives squarely in the teeth. We sure dodged that bullet! Now that was what I call a sustained effort! (I am a boomer myself, so I can speak nasty truths about the boomers.)
Again, I find more reasons to caution my fellow Americans that we are no longer No. 1 in many areas we used to take for granted, and great hoardes of us have yet to update our perceptions. So, despite our sustained and valiant efforts, just move the United States down to the No. 2 position when it comes to greenhouse emissions.
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