Today, I read Fareed Zakaria's recent column in Time magazine, titled "The New Oil and Gas Boom," which is also available here.
One point he made that I found intruiging was the following: "The environmental impact of the natural-gas boom is already clear—and positive. The U.S.’s greenhouse-gas emissions in 2011 were 9% lower than in 2007. That’s a larger drop than in the European Union, with all its focus on renewables. Why? A slow recovery and lagging demand is one answer. But the main reason is that natural gas is replacing coal everywhere as an energy source, and gas emits half as much carbon dioxide as coal."
Some food for thought in your sustainable efforts...
One point he made that I found intruiging was the following: "The environmental impact of the natural-gas boom is already clear—and positive. The U.S.’s greenhouse-gas emissions in 2011 were 9% lower than in 2007. That’s a larger drop than in the European Union, with all its focus on renewables. Why? A slow recovery and lagging demand is one answer. But the main reason is that natural gas is replacing coal everywhere as an energy source, and gas emits half as much carbon dioxide as coal."
Some food for thought in your sustainable efforts...
He's makes another point that I found interesting: namely that if we were to shut down all natural gas and oil operations, we'd go back to mining coal, which produces two times the amount of carbon dioxide. We can think about this behaviorally in terms of allocation of responding among alternative options. I think this article does a nice job of putting the energy situation into realistic perspective. Sure gas and oil are still dirty, but they're better options than coal, and just because we are using our own natural resources doesn't mean we have to sacrifice research into other alternative energy sources. Other thoughts or comments?
ReplyDeleteI agree, Zach. Reducing our energy production overall would be deleterious to society and research, so we do need to take a 'least harm' approach at this time. Using gas and oil energy may be harmful, but we need this energy in order to eventually discover a greener source (to power lights in laboratories and the machines that will lead to the eventual energy breakthrough). I think that this article really puts into perspective the responsibility of behavior analysts to be knowledgeable in the areas that they are trying to effect change. Anyone can write a program to reduce gas and oil usage, but few would consider the negative effects of such a behavioral program (increased coal usage).
ReplyDelete