Starting in 2007, carbon dioxide emissions in the U.S. began dropping off and by 2013 had been cut by 11 percent.
Many have attributed the drop in CO2 to the switch from coal to natural gas to generate electricity, as natural gas production in the U.S. ramped up thanks to new fracking technologies. Even TreeHugger reported on a Harvard study that suggested a correlation between lower gas prices and a drop in CO2.
But a new study from researchers at the University of Maryland suggests that the economic recession was a bigger driver in the drop in carbon emissions. The study, published in Nature Communications, compares various factors that contributed to the decreased emissions.
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The researchers found that the sharpest decline in CO2 happened during the worst of the recession, between 2007 and 2009. During that time, they calculate that 83 percent of the decrease is due to economic factors like consumption and production. As the economy started to recover after 2009, emission crept back up.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 23 2015, @08:25PM
I explained it to you. These days finding a correlation and wildly speculating on the cause counts as science.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Thursday July 23 2015, @08:27PM
Who's "they" and where did the "total" number come from, if not a source that, you know, could measure the different specific sources?
Like... I tried really hard here to frame my question in a way that made the specific problem I saw clear.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 23 2015, @08:48PM
Followed the tree hugger link to here: http://www.alphagalileo.org/ViewItem.aspx?ItemId=117888&CultureCode=en [alphagalileo.org]
They do not cite the source, but searched "Michael B. McElroy" and found this:
Implications of the Recent Reductions in Natural Gas Prices for Emissions of CO2 from the US Power Sector. Environ. Sci. Technol., 2012, 46 (5), pp 3014–3021. DOI: 10.1021/es203750k
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es203750k [acs.org]