wishful thinking? agenda journalism?

In today's NYT's Science Section, John Tierney

y has a piece on the ineffectiveness of Earthday on revolutionizing our energy sources. It could have been a release of the late-Bush White House defended by Ms Perina. (That's not a detached assessment). One of the declarations Tierney makes is: "The richer everyone gets, the greener the planet will be in the long run." The only concern of Tierney's piece is the "carbon" problem. Among the arguments in support of this statement are the fact that richer people will use natural gas and nuclear energy. Developing (=industrializing) nations will use carbon producing energy sources but as they achieve "modernity" they will use less and less of these sources and "decarbonization" begins. Tierny uses the analogy of the Kutznets-curve, represented by an inverted U. One of his informants (from Rockefeller University) said: "If the energy system is left to its own devices, most of the carbon will be out of it by 2060 or 2070." In addition to this process Tierney also points out that the US became deforested at the beginning of the Ind. Rev. but that now reforestation is a widespread phenomenon, and this process will also take place in developing nations.

As I read it, several questions formed almost immediately in my admittedly not sympathetic mind:

1. Tierney says that the US may have been at the top of the curb for several decades: "The amount of carbon emitted by the average American has remained fairly flat. . ." But aren't there significantly more Americans than several decades ago and will the number not continue to increase?

2. Are US forests increasing because farming is declining and more wood is imported from 3d world countries, incl. the Tropics which has a dismal impact on climate, by causing desertification, etc. But are they increasing in the entire nation and not just in the oldest and N.E States? Today it may not be farming but housing developments that cause deforestation and in regions that do not have enough water, etc. To paraphrase Tierney: The richer people get the more housing they use.

3. I switching to gas a long term possibility or is gas, like oil a limited resource?

4. If nuclear energy reduces carbon emission, does it not also cause pollution of a different kind, for what are the solutions for the increasing amounts of nuclear waste?

4. Even Tierney's optimistic informant allows that sustainable (solar) energy will have to become a major source,

5. If we accept the Kutznets-curve, what evidence is there that decarbonization will eventually return us to the bottom of the descending leg of the U and not stop somewhere on the way down? After all x-more people emitting less individually may still emit more than all together than the current population does.

6. Even if admit that all nations might achieve the US standard of living faster than the US did, the upward emissions will continue for that period at a vastly increased rate, then level off for decades, etc. What happens in the meantime?

7. Let's assume that China has already achieved the US standard of living and all of Tierney's emission arguments hold true, then China with a 2008 estimated population of 1.3 billion is adding about four times the US (population 300 million) emissions, hardly an optimistic picture, especially as the US and China are not the only nations on this world.