(Posted by John.)
Architecture 2030 has a new ad (PDF) out in the New Yorker (via Gristmill) that nicely illustrates how difficult it will be to halt carbon emissions with voluntary, incremental steps. Some of the points:
- "If every household in the US changed a 60-watt incandescent light bulb to a compact fluorescent ... The CO2 emissions from just two medium-sized coal-fired power plants each year would negate this entire effort."
- "Wal-Mart is investing a half billion dollars to reduce the energy consumption and CO2 emissions of theirexisting buildings by 20% over the next seven years. If every Wal-Mart Supercenter met this target ... The CO2 emissions from only one medium-sized coal-fired power plant, in just one month ofoperation each year, would negate this entire effort."
So not only are individual efforts not going to be enough, but not even something as massive as Wal-Mart will be able to make subtantial progress if we don't make the obvious choice: stop building coals plants, and start shutting down the ones we have. In Canada, we've got a similar issue of it being politically impossible to consider shutting down the tar sands industry, even though tar sands oil emits way more CO2 than regular oil.
