Sorry Paris Accord. US Economy Grows While Reducing C02 Emissions

P. Gardner Goldsmith | July 12, 2018
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Remember when the dinosaur pop media threw fits of ultra-fear and rancorous anger upon finding out that President Trump was pulling out of the Paris Climate Accord – an “accord” that was not a treaty, was founded on fraudulent and manipulated data, and was merely a back door to a worldwide tax on the use of energy?

Yeah, we remember, as well.

So it’s worth mentioning to all the hand-wringers and politically motivated “scientists” out there that a new report from the US Energy Information Administration shows that while the productive output of the US rose over the past year, the amount of carbon that the economy emitted into the atmosphere decreased. Yes, that’s correct. As American productivity rose, overall carbon emissions decreased, and per capita levels dropped to their lowest levels in 67 years; that's while carbon emissions increased globally.

As Michael Bastasch reports for The Daily Caller:

The Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) latest energy report shows U.S. carbon dioxide emissions are the lowest they’ve been since 1992, and that per-capita emissions are the lowest since 1950. The U.S. emitted 15.6 metric tons of CO2 per person in 1950. After rising for decades, it’s declined in recent years to 15.8 metric tons per person in 2017, the lowest measured levels in 67 years.

How you doin’, there, Europe?

Bastasch observes:

In the last year, U.S. emissions fell more than 0.5 percent while European emissions rose 1.5 percent, according to BP world energy data— an ironic turn of events given Europe’s shaming of Trump for leaving the Paris climate accord.

Indeed. Now, why would the US carbon emissions go down even as GDP increased?

Hmmm…

It’s almost as if there’s some kind of built-in system… Some kind of…

Profit and loss incentive to--

Economize?

To use less energy per unit, or unit-time, in order to reduce costs and give the consumer more for his or her money and efforts?

Hold on now.

Ya mean that the old axiom of economics going back to the Paleolithic still applies to human endeavor? People create tools – both physical and non-physical – in order to decrease their toil and maximize their effort? They discard the things that require more energy and more toil, and generally keep the things that decrease their costs in time, money, and effort? Sellers compete against each other to decrease costs to consumers, thus attracting more sales than if they were less efficient?

How can that possibly be?

It’s almost as if the entire trend of human endeavor has been towards pleasing consumers by giving them more for less – including giving them better living standards for less energy…

But how can that be? It wasn’t mandated by an “accord”! It wasn’t produced from the brains of think-tankers or political parties. It came from the people, from human interaction and freedom.

How is that possible?

As Bastasch notes:

One long-term trend is the natural decline in emissions per unit of economic output, or GDP. EIA data shows the ratio has declined from 1,091 metric tons of CO2 emissions per unit of GDP in 1950 to 301 metric tons in 2017.

Adam Smith and Ludwig von Mises win again.

Sorry NOAA. Sorry CNN. Sorry Paris.

And this isn’t even to touch upon their faulty claims that man-made CO2 emissions on Earth work in the same way as on Venus to trap heat.

You can’t mandate well-being. Well-being is subjective, and only through the marketplace can people express to providers of goods and services what helps them best. Competing sellers work to offer those things at ever-decreasing cost, and one of those costs is the use of energy. Hence, business people try to use less of it to produce their goods. Economics is about economizing, leaving cash and resources left over to do even more good for humanity.

 

The parasites at the Paris Climate Accord gathering only know how to take and dictate. Choice is not in their lexicon.

So it’s a pleasure to show them what people do when left to their own devices.

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