WashPost Wrongly Claimed US Is Still Biggest Greenhouse Gas Emitter

August 5th, 2007 2:55 PM

The media frames America in anthropogenic global warming articles as the evil Earth Killer, and everything from a sparrow flying into a glass window to Darfur's genocide is America's and George Bush's fault, regardless of facts or science.

In an August 4 article which stated President Bush invited the world's leading economic powers to participate in a "climate change summit” that intends to set "voluntary goals for lowering greenhouse gas emissions while sustaining growth,” the Washington Post upheld this tradition by stating (emphasis mine throughout):

The United States, the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases, is not a party to the Kyoto agreement, which calls for the 35 participating nations to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Rapidly developing countries including India, China and Brazil are not bound by the deal, despite booming growth and worsening air pollution in those nations, a factor that has caused Bush to call the accord unworkable.

The problem is that the US is no longer the “world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases.” In June China swept past the US to take the top spot. I know it's hard to keep up with the minutia of who's hurting Mother Earth, but this change was a pretty big deal—or at least it should have been.

I guess I shouldn't be too hard on reporter Michael A. Fletcher for not noticing that the US is no longer number one, considering his own paper didn't report China overtaking the US when it happened. In fact, very little ink was devoted to the momentous occasion. Why, it's almost as if the media do not care as much about the emissions as who is doing the emitting.

 

**Photo by Peter Parks/ AFP

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