Carbon Big Foot

It???s time to support clean coal technology here in the States, so we can export it to developing countries like China. Once the Duke Energy???s Edwardsport IGCC plant in Indiana is completed (it???s on schedule for 2012), this IGCC plant will be one of the cleanest coal-based power plants in the world, producing 10 times as much power as the existing unit with 45 percent less carbon dioxide emissions per unit of energy produced. http://sn.im/factuality5

All nations must spend on research and development, so that the effects of burning fossil fuel may be minimized. Why cannot The United States and other nations which are scientifically advanced, do the same, and share their knowledge with the rest of the world? I believe, that the world is overdoing industrialization. Can the world not find other modes of sustenance, other than the overdependance on machinery and fossil fuel? It is the encouragement of industrialization, which has made civilizations who did not have machines be over dependent on machinery. The problem with the world is, that the west out of self interest, propagated the cult of industrialism, to people who were not dependent on industrialism, and used the military might which was obtained from industrialism, to give the other people no choice, but to adopt industrialism. Hence, the world is facing an ecological disaster. We may have made some of our lives easier, but our health is very much unhealthier. If there was no threat of attack to nuclear power installations, then it would have been easier to build more and improved nuclear power installations. It would be better for the industrial nations of the developed west, to improve their relations with other nations, rather than face off diplomatically and militarily.

The only reason that the poor would get punished in any equation having to do with carbon emission taxation is the same reason that the actual net of the government has continually allowed the majority to be screwed by the rich elite! Simple to see: if 1-3% of the U.S. population take 85-90% of all profits then it is absurdly easy to see that the net result of all American government actions is counter to the concept of democracy!

More clearly stated: nation building, bringing democracy to, and rebuilding countries that force us to blow them up BENIFITS NO ONE EXCEPT BIG BUSINESS AND THE LEGISLATORS THAT WORK FOR THOSE BIG BUSINESSES WHILE BEING PAID TO WORK AS OUR REPRESENTATIVES!

citizen, No thanks, I kind of like indoor plumbing, you know the stuff the romans came up with over two thousand years ago that for some reason or another isn't all that popular in what you call "developing".

another question if you please: exactly what are they developing? without outside interference, there's nothing going on. if we had built a large wall around most of these "developing" countries, they would be the same now as they were 500 years aga, and will be the same for ever.

As i said before, some cultures are quite comfortable where they are. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, it's not.

I would bet a lot of the recently discovered cultures in the Amazon, that have been static for the last 10,000 years, were quite happy without outside interference.

I just take offense to someone trying to blame the "white guy" for their lack of advancement.

Punishing the poor? Would somebody help me out here, what exactly was it that stopped all of the third world countries from developing alongside the rest of the world.

Natural resources? nope, if that were the case, Japan would be one of the poorest nations on earth.

Oppression? Couldn't be, if all life started in Africa, they would naturaly have a several thousand yeatr head start over the rest of the planet. All things being equal, that continent shoud be the epicenter of technology and power.

Am i the only one that believes that third world countries are third world contries for a reason. Kind of like why we still have trailer parks....Some people just don't aspire to advance themselves.

Rather entertaining to see Lemonick twist and turn to find a more fair "solution" to the carbon footprint malarchy. Here's one...put down the Book According to Gore and pull your head out of your proverbial posterior.

The tide is turning...practical science has weathered the onslaught of media hyped Gorism and the mythical notions that we can (and should) directly alter the course of geological and atmospheric time by finding the golden chalice of "just the right amount" of a global carbon footprint. The false positives so often seen with computer generated projections combined with the meaningless "averaging' of what are regional, ever-changing phenomenon are no longer being swallowed whole by the scientific community. My only hope is that we're not too late in getting off this ridiculous Green Path Back To The Stone-Age before our economy (and last shred of common sense) are utterly destroyed.

This idea is not really any different than the Kyoto Protocol and the reason for the US lack of participating would be the same. Again, the US is the worst offender (let???s forgot about overall economic output), so everyone in the US would have to cutback to some ???fair??? level and subsidize those below the floor. It sounds like a losing proposition for the US, again.

Instead of having scientists or professors come up with solutions, how about bringing the industrial leaders (i.e., people with real world experience. Note, this excludes most politicians) together to work out a solution. These are the people that will have to implement any of the proposals, so why not let them be part of the process.

This idea is not really any different than the Kyoto Protocol and the reason for the US lack of participating would be the same. Again, the US is the worst offender (let???s forgot about overall economic output), so everyone in the US would have to cutback to some ???fair??? level and subsidize those below the floor. It sounds like a losing proposition for the US, again.

Instead of having scientists or professors come up with solutions, how about bringing the industrial leaders (i.e., people with real world experience. Note, this excludes most politicians) together to work out a solution. These are the people that will have to implement any of the proposals, so why not let them be part of the process.

The CO2 scaremongering is junk science and socialist politics. If you want to eliminate CO2, eliminate all breathing life forms. If you eliminate all CO2, there will be no plant life. CO2 does not raise temperatures! It is proven. All of the global warming models have demonstrated FAILURE! The earth has been cooling for over 10 years! Why don't people learn the truth. Is the media so bent on socialism that they lie daily? Yup! That's why newspaper circulation continues to decline. Journalists are biased, lying, fools! And most people know that! And the Kyoto plan ... it has caused increases in CO2 in the EU!!! There are too many lying fools in the world.

Wonderful. The article pooh poohs Kyoto and instead spends paragraph after paragraph describing an idea that sounds to me to be impractical to implement, and impossible to legislate. This is not a HOW piece at all, it is more like a WHAT piece. Like a fad diet, the author grasps at a concept published in PNAS, hoping somehow that casting the problem differently will miraculously SHED THOSE POUNDS of CO2 that the US is emitting and CURB ITS DIET of wasteful fossil fuel consumption. Fat chance.

Granted that Kyoto is not perfect, it was adopted by many nations 12 years ago. It is time to admit that the US is more than a decade behind on limiting emissions and not looking to cleaning up their mess. Every year it steps on the scales, sees it is the worst producer of CO2 and trudges off to the fossil fuel refrigerator. There will always be some excuse by people in the US to continue wasting more and polluting more. The fact is that Kyoto has not hurt the Japanese or European economies at all, and have instead created jobs, new technologies and systems, and diversified energy resource use.

America is not leading anymore. People are content to squander and offer up any excuse not to do anything about it. Just a fat man eating potato chips and living in denial, thinking about fad diets.

You have to start out with a false premise of co2 being the boogeyman for this to even be considered. The facts are conclusive. There has been NO warming for a decade. The believers say it's just a temporary pause, it will come back. BS. This is about justifying massive taxes and controls on our economy and activities. You start out with a crock and build on it and pretty soon it's sheer insanity.

To be fair to this reporter, that'a all he's doing, the gist of it is that we are supposed to take control of our personal "greenhouse gas emmissions" that nobody really knows about. what am I doing to create any of this?
I drive, so there is something. I will not stop driving, but alternatives are exorbitant and ridiculously oriented to cost me more than I spend now. The problem is not us, individually, but them, who postulate theories and suggest inviable solutions.
The bottom line is this: All factories must do more than finagle "credits" so as to not have to reduce. Make it a rule, not allowing "exceptions" for the real culprits. Blame us not.

YOU SHOULD DO YOUR RESEARCH SIR, GLOBAL WARMING DOES NOT EXIST TODAY IN FACT WE HAVE BEEN IN A COOLING PERIOD SINCE 2001, NOTHING THAT CLOWN GORE PREDICTED AND SOLD THE WORLD ON HAS HAPPENED. THE PLANET IS NOT GETTING WARMER, THE SEA IS NOT RISING, MIAMI IS STILL ABOVE WATER, AND THE POLAR BEAR POPULATION HAS VASTLY INCREASED. SO IF IT IS HOT OUTSIDE IT MIGHT BE BECAUSE ITS SUMMER TIME. I DON'T THINK ANYONE SHOULD HAVE TO PAY MORE FOR SOMETHING THAT HAS NOT BEEN PROVED NOR FAIRLY DEBATED.