Why the Good Times Are a (Greenhouse) Gas

Andrew is a science journalist and author who has written several books for Sally Ride Science including Our Changing Climate: The Atmosphere.

If the economy goes bad, could that be good for the environment?

That provocative idea lurks in the shadows of a recently published study that found the rate at which we’re pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere is increasing rapidly.

Why the big growth? For the most part, it’s because the world’s economy is on a roll. And when times are good, we do more of just about everything, like build houses, shop at the mall, and zip around by car or jet. All those things require energy and—more frequently than not—put more CO2 into the atmosphere.

The amount of the greenhouse gas released into the atmosphere increased just 1.3 percent a year during the 1990s; between 2000 and 2006, as the world economy boomed, emissions grew by 3.3 percent annually, scientists estimate. The scientists pin about two-thirds of the increase on industrial growth, according to a study that appeared in October in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

But that’s not the whole story: what’s called the “carbon intensity” of the world’s economy also is on the rise after several decades of decline. What’s that mean? Simply put, the amount of carbon dioxide—whether from burning coal, oil, or gas—that’s emitted in making everyday things is growing. (More accurately, carbon intensity is measured by the amount of carbon emitted per dollar of economic activity.)

For example, compare a widget factory run on electricity generated by the wind compared to one that runs on juice supplied by a power plant that burns coal. Widgets made at the first factory rely on a clean energy source and thus are less “carbon intense” than those made at the second. In the real world, the building of coal-fired power plants—and the factories they power—in places like China, fast becoming a major manufacturer of just about everything, is partly to blame for the stepped-up carbon intensity of the global economy.

That’s still not all, though. The scientists also found the Earth’s land and oceans are becoming less efficient at sopping up the carbon dioxide we produce. Currently, they can absorb about half our CO2 emissions; scientists fear that proportion will shrink. Previously, some hoped that an atmosphere richer in CO2 would stimulate plant growth and help keep levels of the greenhouse gas in check. That may not be the case.

So what to do? No one is out there rooting for factories to close, workers to lose their jobs, or retail sales to plummet. But what if that did happen? Well, CO2 emissions in many of the formerly communist countries in Eastern Europe plummeted after their economies collapsed in the years immediately following 1989. There’s no reason to believe that wouldn’t be the case if the economy went south on a global scale, too.

There are other less devastating and disruptive ways to get there, too. One is to encourage developing countries to drop coal for less carbon-intense energy sources, like natural gas, nuclear, wind, or solar power. Another is to encourage greater efficiencies in how energy is used, whether to make electricity, run factories, or move people around. All would help reduce CO2 emissions, the largest contributor to the effect our activities have on climate change.