[aerohead]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

No denying any of that. This is essentially what I've been saying, that gentle yet progressive taxation is probably the best way to steer consumers and industry into less waste.

My point though is that this merely delays warming by trivial amounts of time. As a thought experiment, it would be interesting to know what level of fossil fuel consumption would hold CO2 steady given our current population and assuming it doesn't grow.

US energy consumption is highest per capita, but our population hardly grows, and has remained relatively steady. We've got lots of room to cut, and it should be cut, but the problem is much bigger than the US.



Notice that energy consumption drops with the health of the economy. They are strongly correlated.


As an aside, air travel is a very efficient means of travel. It can be near 100 passenger miles per gallon. 2 people in my Prius breaks even, and it would take 3 to exceed that efficiency. For the average vehicle, it takes 4 passengers to equal the efficiency of air travel.

To remain 'steady',it would have to be zero emissions to keep us at 407 ppmv.