CO2 emissions

For those of you who aren't climate change experts, here's a great little cheat sheet to help you understand the absurdity of the energy bill now under debate in the Congress.

Former President Bush and the United States in general were - and still are - depicted as criminal destroyers of the environment. Unlike the Europeans, who agreed to the Kyoto Protocol to limit greenhouse gas emissions, we didn't care and were only making things worse.

Only it turns out that, between 2000 and 2006, carbon dioxide emissions from the combustion of fossil fuels increased 0.7 % in the United States, as compared with 4.9 % in Europe. This, mind you, during a period when the U.S. growth rate exceeded the European average. Worldwide, CO2 emissions increased 21.6%.

So, do we really need a punitive, expensive new regime to control emissions?