U.S. lifestyle won't have to change in CO2 cut: report

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN2923217120071129?sp=true

U.S. lifestyle won't have to change in CO2 cut: report

Thu Nov 29, 2007 5:29pm EST

By Timothy Gardner

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. citizens will not have to drive less or read in the dark to slash greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, but they will have to buy more efficient cars and appliances, a report from two business groups said on Thursday.

"You may have different lightbulbs, and your car may be made of different materials, but basically we've assumed that consumer lifestyles stay constant," Jack Stephenson, a director at McKinsey & Company, a business consultant group told reporters on a teleconference call from Washington.

McKinsey published the report called "Reducing U.S. Greenhouse Emissions: How Much at What Cost?" with The Conference Board, a research group.

The United States could reduce projected 2030 emissions of greenhouse gases by between one-third to one-half at manageable costs to the economy, the report found. Its mid-range case found that cutting 3 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent from the United States by 2030 would cost an average about $50 billion annually, or a total of $1.1 trillion.

...

[frogcycle]

1. This may be valid

but some relatively innocuous changes - that I do not consider "lifestyle changes" can make the improvements vastly better.

If we were to adopt the mindset that getting people into and out of cities for regularly scheduled activites (aka commuting to work) was something to tackle as a society interested in cost/benefit, we'd be turning out articulated buses 24x7, committing expressway lanes to them, putting parking lots in the suburbs, and providing shuttle service to/from the cities. It's analogous to putting elevators in government office buildings. A cost of doing business for the enterprise - that enterprise being the US economy. Oh, longer term the buses might be replace with monorails, pneumatic tubes, who knows what. But RIGHT NOW, using EXISTING TECHNOLOGY, we could have a huge impact on oil imports and carbon emissions. Not to mention making the daily commute less of a grind, opening up the highways so that those who may want to have the car downtown on a given day can get there in a reasonable time, moving at fuel-efficient speeds rather than crawling along pumping out CO2 while not moving. Charge them a hefty fee to do so, but let it be available. No "lifestyle changes" needed; general improvement in efficiency, with people working, reading, or sleeping on the bus rather than wasting a couple of hours in traffic.

I have not done the math, but I have to believe that the overall return on investment for the nation would be a huge plus.

[losthills]

2. Total and complete B.S....

[kestrel91316]

3. I beg to differ. Our lifestyle is completely UNSUSTAINABLE

as it stands right now.

[XemaSab]

4. Green

wash. :(

[NNadir]

5. This is the Yuppie brat fantasy that drives the whole Greenpeace type movement.

It is, spectacularly, a movement that cannot add and subtract.

Americans use 11400 watts of continuous average power. If 6.6 billion people tried to live this garbage generating fantasy, world energy demand would be 2370 exajoules, compared to 488 exajoules right now.

The fact is that the consumer fantasy that buys uncritically into this crap is simply in denial, a horrible, immoral denial that kills.

This is the kind of stuff that is the provence of the morally crippled Walmart executive Amory Lovins. No decent person should entertain it.

[pscot]

6. Lose weight fast

without diet or exercise.

[eppur_se_muova]

7. Take mass transit? With all those unwashed poor people? Heaven forfend!

Let's not go to radical extremes, my good man!