A Truth That Must Not Be Spoken

World production of CO2 reached 31.6 gigatonnes in 2011, the highest ever. But the IEA report also notes that American CO2 production is down, way down.

The carbon footprint of a typical American is back to 1964 levels and US emissions are falling faster than necessary to meet the Copenhagen Accord goal of 17% reduction by 2020. The IEA reports that the U.S. has decreased 430 million tonnes of CO2,  equal to all CO2 from all Canadians outside Alberta.

Now one would think that everyone would be thrilled with this progress. But the American press is strangely silent. The Green movement is strangely silent. Why is that?

One explanation might be that the fall in emissions is due to the adoption of natural gas. That is still a carbon producer and, like any religion, the environmental movement has no sliding scale for mortal sins.