Acton PowerBlog: Economy and Energy Consumption Jordan Ballor
Schadler pointed out that even though the United States has only 5% of the world’s population, we consume 25% of the world’s energy. It’s a typical canard trotted out by those who want to depict us ugly Americans as “energy hogs.”
…….
But let’s take a brief look at the implications of such statistics. Let’s even accept them at face value. What such conclusions about the wastefulness per capita of American energy consumption overlook is the inherent connection between economic productivity and energy usage.
Yes, let’s say America’s share of worldwide energy usage is 25%.
But what is America’s share of the global economy? Somewhere between one-fifth and one-third of gross world product. So just maybe there is in fact a link between economic output and energy consumption.
I also know that the US produces 25% of human-generated CO2, consistent with these figures. That is another charge frequently leveled at our economy. However, emissions of the principal pollutants (CO2 technically is not a pollutant) have dropped by half since 1975 (12% since 2000). This was done despite the US population growing by more than 35% and GDP growing by more than 150%. Pollution per capita has been falling for a long time and continues to do so.
Canard indeed.
Leave a Reply