Committee on the Environment

The original source of the CO2 emissions graph is a Washington Times pro-fracking spin piece (i) by Stephen Moore. He is an "economics consultant" for Freedom Works (ii). Moore claims the U.S. reductions are due to fracking / natural gas displacing coal but does not cite any data; indeed the article is presented as an opinion piece. It's depressing that the graph has found its way into other articles, because the information is so politicized. It's deliberately deceptive because it makes it seem like the U.S. is behaving more responsibly than known "green" countries. When you look at the raw data (iii), you can see that the U.S. has indeed reduced its annual per capital CO2 output from a high of 20 tonnes in 2000 to 17 by 2011. Over the same period, it's true that Germany made less of a reduction - moving from 10.1 to 8.9 tonnes. But they were already emitting so much less CO2 than the U.S. - about half - so percent reduction is not a real measure of how well we're doing, it's a way for an anti-green, pro-fracking propagandist to spin information. Very misleading graph.

i. Stephen Moore: How fracking reduces greenhouse gases Green propaganda about catastrophic consequences are wrong again http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/apr/10/stephen-moore-how-fracking-reduces-greenhouse-gase/

ii. Freedom Works: http://www.freedomworks.org/

iii. Data collected by U.S. Dept. of Energy: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions_per_capita