Ok, it turns out I didn’t have to run out after all. So, where were we? Ezra calls me dishonest and insinuates I’m kind of obtuse for this post from earlier today.

I think Ezra is desperate to misconstrue my point so that he can wag his finger and whine about mean and dishonest conservatives. My point was simple. The American economy depends on fossil fuels and the world depends on the Amerrican economy. When journalists carrying water for envrionmentalists trot out the stat that US makes up only 5% of the world population but contributes X amount of [insert bad thing] they’ve already framed the debate in terms favorable to their side. The issue isn’t our population, it’s our economy. The US makes up about 25% of world GDP and, as I noted, we are responsible for a lot of the conditions which make the rest of the world’s economic growth possible. Why is it that liberals love to point out that America is only 5% of the population when it comes to the bad things we do, but never points out similar ratios to, say, the UN budget?

Ezra snickers at my alleged suggestion — I say alleged because I never really suggested it — that “molecular geneticists” create a lot of greenhouse gasses. But, I’ll suggest it now. The point he’s deliberately missing is that the economy which sustains molecular geneticists rests on fossil fuels. Our economic vitality makes such research possible in myriad obvious ways. And, if Ezra wanted to take a little more time before getting so snippy with me, he might have realized that research scientists have an enormous carbon footprint because they use so much electricity. Indeed, our entire supposedly “clean” high tech sector is responsible for enormous amounts of C02 emissions because we generate most of our electricity from stuff like coal. I would be glad to switch to nuclear in order to remedy that. Would Ezra?

Also, I should note, that idiotic Washington Post story takes this new environmental study at face value — as, of course, does Ezra — but even if the study is right, the story just doesn’t make sense. First, the study is talking about light vehicles and the reporter seems to be translating that into all C02 emissions (look at the chart in the article). According to the DOE, the US doesn’t contribute 45% of carbon dioxide, it contributes about 25% (funny how Ezra missed that). Also, it’s not clear to me that many of the vehicles producing this supposed 45% are even in America. It seems — and I’m not sure because the article is so bad — that the emissions in foreign countries created by our cars should be put in America’s column. Cool! That means I can buy whatever honking foreign made car I want and the responsibility will be Britain’s or Sweden’s.

Look, carbon emissions generally track productivity and economic output. We’re responsible for about a quarter of global C02 emissions and we account — directly — for about 25% of global GDP. Ezra, laughably, says we “make no effort” to “conserve” fossil fuels. This is a classic example of the perils of blogging to an audience that already agrees with you. The fact is we are vastly more efficient users of fossil fuels than most of the world (our “carbon intensity” is below the global average). People who bitch and moan about our contribution to global warming always want to look at it in a vacuum. I’m not saying we couldn’t be better. But there are reasons we use so much energy and curtailing that energy use will have dramatic unintended consequences. It’s fine to moan about how we drive too much, but in a country as big as ours switching to light rail is not so easy (or desirable). By the way, I await the caterwauls from lickspittles of the labor movement when green techonology puts Detroit automakers out of business. I’m sure Ezra & Co. can wax lyrical about raising CAFE standards and deploying an armada of the very best windmills in the world, but that’s at best tinkering, and really sort of a joke.

In my original post, I said that I loathe the commentary stories like the Washington Post’s generate. I think Ezra’s diatribe is a perfect example of what I was talking about.