Compared with the Clean Power Plan, [the EPA's new Affordable Clean Energy rules] could, over the next few decades, allow hundreds of millions of tons of additional carbon emissions.
Hundreds of millions of tons over decades, eh?
How about gigatons from wildfires in just one year?
In 1997, a fire consumed 8,000 square kilometers of mostly peatland in Borneo. Researchers estimated 0.2 Gt of carbon were released in this one area that year, and that carbon emissions from fires across Indonesia in 1997 emitted between 0.8 and 2.5 Gt — or “13 to 40%” of the size of global human fossil fuel emissions. ...
Other researchers, der Werf et al 2004, looked at fires around the world during the El Nino year and estimated that 2.1 Gt of carbon was released — which explained 66% ± 24% of the extra CO2 emitted globally that year. Bowman et al estimate fires produced emissions around 50% of the size of human emissions. ...
California, Nevada and Colorado could impact climate far more deeply, cheaply and effectively RIGHT NOW by preventing and containing the wildfires which are making moot the comparatively puny plans of the EPA.
