Jeez Louise, what a load of bollocks from Time Magazine.
The article goes on to say:
Climate modelers have long known that households are far bigger contributors to global warming than most laypeople realize. For all the blame tailpipe emissions take for escalating temperatures, homes and office buildings are actually the single largest contributor to greenhouse gasses. One key reason is the 100-plus million refrigerators in America’s 111 million households. According to the Department of Energy, the standard fridge sucks up about 8% of the electricity used by all homes—a pretty big share given the dozens of big and small appliances and electronics that are also drawing juice.
Forget climate modelers, lets look at some real data.
On the other side of the energy and emissions issue, we have this recently released (March2011) report from the US Energy Information Administration (PDF)
Total U.S. anthropogenic (human-caused) greenhouse gas emissions in 2009 were 5.8 percent below the 2008 total (Table 1). The decline in total emissions—from 6,983 million metric tons carbon dioxide equivalent (MMTCO2e) in 2008 to 6,576 MMTCO2e in 2009—was the largest since emissions have been tracked over the 1990-2009 time frame. It was largely the result of a 419-MMTCO2e drop in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions (7.1 percent).
Have a look at CO2 emissions graphically, by energy sector this is from the EIA report:
Now let’s look at CO2 emissions by industrial fuel, still falling fast.
Now here’s the kicker. World Climate Report took the EIA data for total CO2 emissions from the USA, and graphed it against the CO2 emission data for the same period from China:
And these morons at Time magazine are worried about the few extra watts of electrcity used in my electric ice maker and trying to make me feel guilty about it?
I can’t print what I’d like to say.
UPDATE: Some commenters asked about employment -vs-CO2, here’s a graph that is a close proxy for employment, per capita income -vs- CO2.
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And please whatever you do, do not fart.
Methane may be released into the atomosphere and the eco-police will be round to arrest you before you know it.
Ian Summerall; yes indeed, there is a human extinctionist ,movement. Some are quite open about it, others (the de-industrialization people,, eg) just want to reduce the human population by 6.5 billion by 2030.
The obvious answer — leave the refrigerator door open so it helps cool the planet. Same thing with your A/C. If you have a window unit, just put install it backwards and turn it on full blast.
Figure 1 is a great proxy for economic activity – China has been on a roll ever since around 2000 – their economy is booming & their lives , collectively, are improving. In the US, the economy has been sucking the last several years & our CO2 emissions are down.
Pretty simple conclusion. Energy consumption = prosperity.
When the greens push for reduced energy consumption, they are pushing for a poorer standard of living for all. In the end, it is an anti-human agenda.
Being somewhat nerdy (aren’t all of us who read WUWT?) I looked at the EIA report and Figure 11 is interesting. This shows heating degree days (days where the average is below a certain figure.
Doesn’t look like it is going down to me… wasn’t that supposed to happen with
global warming, climate change, global climate disruptionoh, whatever the heck we are calling it now?We Americans are producing fantastic beer. Don’t be talking about out beer that way. Now i’ll agree Bud and Coors, pretty whimpy. But who drinks it? We whooped you in 1812 and we can do it again! By the way, regarding temps, read the label on a Guiness bottle. Besides, 25 degrees is a heat wave in England.
When will Time Magazine stop printing their tree based magazines?
You can print what you’d like to say. This is the internet. All forms of vulgarity are welcome here, even encouraged.
John S. says:
April 15, 2011 at 6:06 am
a trend that has in all likelihood already been reversed for 2010 with the ‘recovery’
Electricity consumption is back to 2008 levels. There was some fuel switching.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/table1_1.html
“…the 100-plus million refrigerators in America’s 111 million households.”
Fridges sellers’ of the US take note, 11 million sales opportunities.
I guess the good folks at Time expect us to use rotten ice instead.
;->
Don’t know about youse guy’s ‘fridgerators, but mine makes the cubes and fills up the bin, then stops production. It adds a thermal mass to the interior of the freezer section that reduces the on/off cycle, and in so doing increases efficiency.
I’m far more concerned with the impact on our environment of Time magazine printing presses, the carbon footprint of its production and distribution, and its total unsuitability for parakeet waste sequestration.
Now wouldn’t it be interesting to see how many Time employees have automatic ice makers, or even Time itself.
I love CO2, it makes the grass grow, and also the veggies that I eat, go China go.
The greens don’t go after China because there is no free speech in China.
The greens love attacking America because here we let people say whatever they want, they can say anything and their speech is protected. So when they say that Democracy is failing their cause and must be replaced just remember they’re not saying these things in China, the largest of world polluters. I would imagine openly speaking against the regime there due to pollution concerns might not go over so well for those speaking out.
It’s interesting though, that these same people work so hard to silence or marginalize those skeptical of their conclusions in the country that gave the environmental movement it’s birth.
“The essential seductiveness of models is that the feeling grows in those working on them that by adding enough refinements to it, it will be 100% accurate. This can never happen.”
http://thepointman.wordpress.com/2011/01/21/the-seductiveness-of-models/
You can “prove” anything with a climate model …
Pointman
Interested, I looked. The word “employment” isn’t in the report. The closest I could find to what you wanted was Page 24, Figure 12 which graphs CO2 emissions over per-capita income.
It’s the ancient Romans fault. They started this whole ice cube thing by having caravans of mules going up in the Italian Alps to haul chunks of ice down to Rome.
And there was Hansen couple of months earlier praising China as the model for the world and cursing USA!!
REPLY: There is one in the EIA report, just open it – Anthony
I searched for “unemployment” in the report and came up empty.
REPLY: It is a proxy for employment, per capita income see previous comment, I’ll put it up in the body so as to not make people have to look – Anthony
Actually Anthony, the EIA report doesn’t graph carbon emissions vs employment/unemployment. It does graph carbon emissions vs per capita income – but that may or may not be quite the same thing. My gut reaction is that I wouldn’t equate the two.
A. Hitler said, “Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it”. The global warming crowd, seeing their scheme going down the tubes are simply pouring it on to overwhelm any opposition with the intention eventually people will believe it and submit to their socialist dictatorial scheme.
Of course China is pouring more CO2 into the air and they are thriving as a result of all the industry in equipment, science and procedures we gave them as a gift for their cheap slave labor.
Heh heh … to hell with that compromise. The beer fridge in my garage is piped in to the house’s water supply. Quick and easy ice water when I’m working on some project or another in the garage. 😉
Did they account for the energy expended by:
-keeping fridge door open longer fiddling with ice cube trays
This introduces warm moist air in the fridge which makes the compressor run to cool it off and the defroster to run to remove the moisture.
-the energy I expend fiddling around with ice cube trays
I have to walk back and forth from fridge to sink to refill cube trays and stand at the sink while the trays are refilling. The energy to do that increases the CO2 I expel as I breathe.
That said, as an engineer I find it unsatisfactory that 10-20% of a refrigerator’s energy use is expended by a heater to keep the ice-maker motor from freezing up. 84 kwh per year doesn’t seem like much but if you’re in California paying up to $0.30 per kwh that’s $25/year and over the 20 year service life of the fridge (I have one that’s still working fine after 35 years) that’s $500. I have better uses for $500 than spending it on an ice-maker motor-heater. Shirley there’s room for large improvement in the ice-maker design. A dime’s worth of foam insulation encapsulating the motor comes immediately to mind. For ten dollars more you could use a hydraulic motor inside the freezer and put the hydraulic pump on the outside. Or you could put the electric motor in the refrigerator compartment where it wouldn’t need heating and feed the driveshaft through into the freezer. $500 or even $100 over the service life of the appliance makes any $10 solution a big winner.
Thus I am forced to give creds to the US EIA for their efforts in identifying the unnecessary energy/cost and Time Mag as well for their effort to make consumers aware of it. This is taxpayer money well invested IMO. There’s a relative precious few things where taxpayer money is well invested so I think the mockery in the OP is not well placed.
Talking of ice the Arctic is playing stubborn. Stop it!
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_timeseries.png
I’m quite certain there’s room for improvements. And, don’t call me Shirley.