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Carbon Intensity of the Economy

It is always good when debates can be resolved by appeals to data, because it helps to eliminate ambiguity.

Joe Romm expressed concern that I had shown a graph of energy intensity of the global economy to suggest that the overall decarbonization of the global economy did not decrease over the poeriod 1890-1970. That was this figure:

Romm explained to his readers how serious a mistake I had made:

Obviously carbon per GDP can go in a completely different direction than energy per GDP. If Pielke’s analytical mistake isn’t crystal clear to anyone reading this blog, please let me know. So my problem with him isn’t semantics. Pielke’s argument is simply wrong. His analysis is flawed.

OK Joe, lets look at carbon per GDP over the same time period:

Readers are now in a position to judge for themselves whether or not the argument I made is materially affected in this case by using one figure over the other. The alternative perhaps is that Joe Romm is trying to make a mountain out of a molehill. As I said, thank goodness for data.