Oslo Study: Transport Accounts for 15% of Manmade CO2

Robert Farago
by Robert Farago

USA Today reports that a new study by the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research (CICERO) claims that cars, trucks, airplanes, trains and ships generate 15 percent of the manmade CO2 in the Earth's atmosphere. "The scientists reported that within the transport sector, road transportation (cars, buses and trucks) contribute the most greenhouse gases, which includes CO2, ozone, methane, and others." So big ass yachts and U.S. presidential candidates' private jets get a pass, eh? According to the report by CICERO Research Director Jan S. Fuglestved, the remaining 85 percent of atmospheric CO2 comes from industry, buildings and agriculture. Meanwhile, writing for Yahoo! News, one Jack Kelly argues that the mass media "Promotes Global Warming Alarmism." In the piece, Weather Channel founder John Coleman says "Some dastardly scientists with environmental and political motives manipulated long term scientific data to create an illusion of rapid global warming. Their friends in government steered huge research grants their way to keep the movement going… In time, in a decade or two, the outrageous scam will be obvious." So should we even be running this story?

Robert Farago
Robert Farago

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  • Qduffy Qduffy on Jan 09, 2008

    I'm a believer in climate change - it's happening, we're all part of the cause. It's disingenuous to think that 6 billion people burning billions of barrels of crude aren't going to have an effect on an atmosphere that is, at best, a couple of dozen miles thick. I took oceanography and microclimatology at university in the late 80s/early 90s and there was already significant concern over the arctic ice-caps shrinking rapidly, and other climatological and hydrological data that was revealing some uncomfortable trends. While climate change was an issue, it certainly didn't have the attention it now so critically deserves - 15 years later. Where we might still lack understanding on the modeling side is the effect. i.e. Will millions of tons of fresh water entering the the oceans eliminate or redirect critical ocean currents, plunging Europe into an ice age? Will increased cloud cover from evaporation increase albedo, lower incoming solar radiation, and stabilize temperatures? Will increased water vapour from evaporation enhance the greenhouse effect? Will billions of tons of methane free itself from melting Siberian tundra and wipe us all out? Will nothing happen at all? We might not yet know which way to bet, but we know what's potentially at stake, right? And, as a car guy, I'm excited by the potential of the automotive future - maybe it'll mean smaller, lighter, more engaging cars that are more fun to drive?

  • StevieMcOldcars StevieMcOldcars on Jan 09, 2008

    I'm just your average classic-car driving, vegetarian, leather shoe wearing (vinyl shoes lead to more pollution, so should I wear hemp, jkross22?), insulated-home owning, walking to work and the grocery store guy, but seems like 15% of man made CO2 is a fairly big piece of the pie. Sure, industry pollutes more, but I don't own a factory. One reason to target automotive fuel efficiency is because cleaner cars are a nearly painless change for consumers. It's harder to be vegetarian, even though it's healthy, saves money, and saves corn for flex-fuel GM trucks! The payback for improved home efficiency is awfully long without government incentives. If you were buying a new car anyway, buying one that gets 30 mpg instead of 20 mpg is just about effortless. Start there, and buy a few compact flourescent bulbs, and take on the harder changes next year. Better yet, drive a 20 y.o. 30 mpg car and save the energy and pollution from manufacturing a new one. With the money you save, insulate the house and put in a passive solar water heating system.

  • Raskolnikov Raskolnikov on Jan 09, 2008

    I was under the assumption that it was 18%. Hot damn, this is great!! My silly friend just traded a perfectly good 1996 Accord in for a new Prius because he wanted to save the Earth and let everyone know about it. He was under the assumption that cars were the sole contributor to global warming. I explained to him that while he might fool some people, he should know that it was actually an irresponsible move. He created demand for a new vehicle that requires gobs of energy to produce (especially the batteries), while tossing aside a paid for vehicle that ran well and was quite efficient already. After an in-depth discussion about this, he justified his purchase by claiming that he'll save money at the gas pump. Saving money by spending alot more than you should have......what a concept.

  • Landcrusher Landcrusher on Jan 10, 2008

    Holzman, The wood thing was sarcasm. An argument used to question ice age/warming/climate change theories is to ask them to use their theories to explain the dark ages. There was a noted cold period that lead to severe famines. What started or ended it? When we hear about CO2, we never hear about what percentage of total CO2 is caused by cars, just the man made portion. There is also a reason for the political posturing that comes out with this topic. The scientists generally propose solutions which are political. They also do this based on evidence which is often speculative or even faith based. Science does not allow you to tie together a bunch of unrelated crap and point to a conclusion. However, it seems that this is exactly what we now get from them. If there is some genius out there who has accurately been predicting the changes since the seventies, then his number one enemy is not the political right, it's the other scientists and the political left who are doing everything possible to ensure that nothing of importance will be done about it.

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