We discussed the Global Change Research Program earlier this week. You remember- the report that explains how badly climate change is going to prove for life as we know it. The one that TheDonald wanted to bury, so he had it released on the Friday after Thanksgiving.
(TheDonald also proved how wise he is by claiming he doesn’t believe in global warming. He knows it “in his gut”. As if scientific fact is a religion, something we can believe in or not.)
But, the Global Change Research Program was one of two reports the government issued that day. The second one, the Second State of the Carbon Cycle report, was not really much better for our lives with its prognosis. This report was ordered to be produced way back in the Obama administration, when Sally Jewell was the Secretary of the Interior.
It lays a good portion of our problems right at the US government’s feet. The USGS (United States Geological Survey) stated that about ¼ of all carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions come from extracting and burning fossil fuels- on FEDERAL lands. (The exact number is 23.7%, over the 10 year study period.) The good news? Only 7.3% of methane emissions (most of those come from oil production facilities) and 1.5% of nitrous oxide emanate from federal lands.
The study assessed emissions along the entire supply chain- from their very start to when the gases are actually released. It’s the carbon cycle that characterizes the greenhouse gas situation, and it’s the greenhouse gases that drive the climate changes that are occurring.
What this really means is that the US can radically shift the quantity of its greenhouse gas emissions by regulating just what happens on federal lands. That’s a lot easier than trying to impose new rules on industry and individuals.
Except, since TheDonald has become President, we’ve done the opposite. The Department of the Interior loosened the requirements to contain greenhouse gases just this year. We are now leasing out even more federal acreage. (The new system is even letting speculators manipulate the process. By auctioning off more land than has been normal, the big and even small US operators pass- because they can’t process any more land from a given auction; leaving the land to be purchased by speculators at $ 1.50 an acre!)
Obviously, we will be INCREASING our greenhouse gas emissions now.
