America and Global Warming

[tiger]

George Bush promises to cut petrol consumption by 20% over the next 10 years!
Whatever his reason for jumping on the bandwagon, it seems to me to be too little, too late.

[Gizmos]

maybe he reads PTS :eek:

[tiger]

maybe he reads PTS :eek:

Wouldn't that be great - PTS influences World Affairs.:D

[M3chanical_animal]

I must say the turn-around is a bit surprising and I can only imagine it would have some sort of monetary gain for the US - something like world leaders getting together and say America cut your emissions by this much by this date and we'll slide you XX million dollars under the table........(sorry I'm not a big fan of the Bush administration haha)

[NatsDad]

One big factor is America's desire to reduce their dependance on oil which of course they are major importers. They have done this before and legislated minimum fuel economy on all new cars. The EU seem to be doing the same in requiring a reduction in CO2 emissions on all new cars.

[boffin]

George Bush promises to cut petrol consumption by 20% over the next 10 years!
Whatever his reason for jumping on the bandwagon, it seems to me to be too little, too late.

The problem with this is that he wants to replace petrol with biofuels.

What this means is that land that could be used for trees or for farming food will be used to grow fuel. They'll still be generating the same amount of CO2.

I'm reading a very interesting (if not a little depressing) book about this by James Lovelock called 'The Revenge of Gaia'. I'd recommend it.

[M3chanical_animal]

Yes and the problem with mass produced Biodiesel is that rainforests are being leveled in order to grow plantations for Palm Oil and therefore what ever CO2 they are reducing with Biodiesel is being cancelled out with the reduction of the rainforests.