NICOSIA (Reuters) - A slowdown in the global economy "may give the planet a breather from the excessively high carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions responsible for climate change" according to one report this week byNobel Prize winning scientist, Paul J. Crutzen.
According to the report, when the economy is in the shitter, everyone else is, too! As Crutzen suggests, sluggish economic global growth could help slow down carbon dioxide emissions and trigger more careful use of energy resources, though the global economic turmoil may also divert focus from efforts to counter climate change, said Crutzen, winner of the 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on the depletion of the ozone layer.
"It's a cruel thing to say ... but if we are looking at a slowdown in the economy, there will be less fossil fuels burning, so for the climate it could be an advantage."
Stay tuned to find out what the two fastest growing polluters with billions of citizens, China and India, will do to stop the unsustainable output of global carbon dioxide emissions.
-2Truthy
2 comments:
I would think if "we are looking at a slowdown in the economy," there will be MORE fossil fuels burning. We just won't collapse back to the Stone Age overnight.
It's kind of like the "paradox" a lot of people in health clubs just can't understand, in which the plebes with less money are MORE obese rather than dying of starvation, because they can't afford healthy lifestyles.
I think it's time for the Nobel Prize committee to start asking for some of their medals back. Or better yet, start awarding all of their medals posthumously.
It all depends on "whose" economy will slowdown. If India and China put the brakes on the exponential industrial manufacturing growth, then I suspect this is what the author is referring to. That, combined with all other countries on the planet huddling around their living rooms wrapped in goose down parkas, sipping hot cocoa and singing rounds of "The Big Rock Candy Mountain".
On the other hand, what if he is so dire as to base his prediction that an economic slowdown will "save the world" from climate on a bunch of people keeling over all around the globe from starvation?
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