I literally just today learned that the “Biden is destroying the climate, we emitted more greenhouse gas than ever before in 2023” talking point isn’t even “not the whole story” – it’s actually the complete opposite of what actually happened.
Not only are we still way below the high we set in 2005, the rate is still steadily going down. Maybe the people saying this mean the world as a whole set a record, and they’re blaming the entire world’s emissions on Biden? I have no idea.
Anyway, this is what actually happened.
Edit: Hang on, I am wrong or partly wrong. The talking-point version is that US set a record for fossil fuel extraction, not emissions, which is completely accurate and also still terrifying. So fair play I guess.
And on Friday, the Department of Energy announced a conditional $189 million loan guarantee to LongPath Technologies, which plans to mount lasers on giant towers to monitor methane leaks at oil and gas fields across the country.
That’s pretty neat. Towers with frickin’ lasers on their heads
Most of the criticism I’m seeing regarding Biden’s environmental record involves the record amount of fossil fuel extraction that happened under his administration. I suspect that’s also the same criticism OP has seen, but it’s easier to try to replace it with a strawman that can be easily knocked down.
To what extent Biden is responsible for the decrease in coal emissions is unclear, but let’s just give him sole credit for the sake of argument. It’s possible to be happy about the decrease in emissions while still being livid at the record oil extraction.
Oooh
I see, yeah, that’s accurate. I more or less assumed that fuel extracted would equal with fuel burned but that’s not the case.
So yeah while I can give credit for the climate bill and acknowledge that Trump is 10 times worse on this issue and acknowledge that Biden’s one of the forces in government trying to yank the emissions in the correct direction and direct the negativity on the climate at the people who are trying to water down even the not-enough stuff that he’s trying to do, it’s also fair to still be absolutely terrified at what the sum total output of the US government for the last 4 years has been. In particular, those charts of US Energy Administration predictions for what will happen in their perfect scenario look a lot like the end of the world.
There are a couple of intertwined issues. First, sanctions on Russia caused a sharp reduction of the amount of oil they export. The US increased its own exports to mitigate the pain felt by the EU, who had relied on Russian oil.
Second, as discussed above the IRA will drastically reduce emissions by the US. In order to pass the bill, Manchin demanded new drilling permits in the Gulf. They threw him that bone, because even after accounting for new drilling the IRA has an overwhelmingly net beneficial effect on global CO2.
fuel extraction is hardly a pragmatic tool to measure efficacy of policy, so i think your original point still stands. i’d even go so far as to call pointing out rising extraction while emissions are falling “cherry picking,” and i generally think that phrase is overused.
