Leaving aside debates about lives lost and billions of
dollars spent, the war in Iraq alone is producing 43.3 million
metric tons of carbon dioxide per year, they estimate. Of
Americans' daily consumption of about 19.4 million barrels in
2008, the year on which the study focused, about 2.4 million
barrels of oil a was imported from the Middle East.
+------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Does Middle East Oil Get a Carbon Subsidy?
2010-07-19 13:12:18.504 GMT
By MATTHEW L. WALD
July 19 (New York Times) -- The federal government's
position on ethanol fuel is that it must contribute less to
global warming than gasoline does, or why bother promoting it.
Yet by some calculations, ethanol is worse because it encourages
the destruction of forests to make way for new farmland, many
assert. Burning trees releases carbon dioxide into the
atmosphere; what is more, the trees are no longer there to absorb
carbon dioxide.
Now, two professors at the University of Nebraska counter
that gasoline is an even bigger source of heat-trapping gases
than previously believed. While most attention focuses on the
obvious sources of gasoline-related emissions - drilling wells,
transporting oil, refining it into gasoline and finally burning
it in a car engine - they argue that the military activity that
goes into protecting and acquiring oil imports from the Middle
East takes an emissions toll that doesn't get factored into
comparisons of gasoline and ethanol.
In a paper to be published on Tuesday in Environment
Magazine, Adam J. Liska, whose specialty is industrial ecology,
and Richard K. Perrin, who focuses on agricultural economics,
write that fuel burned in warplanes and ships - and the carbon
dioxide released in manufacturing those planes and ships - should
be counted in gasoline's total.
Figuring out which military emissions should be credited to
gasoline's account is difficult, they acknowledge.
Entering the war in Iraq, for example, was not ostensibly
about protecting oil supplies, but about blocking Saddam Hussein
from developing nuclear weapons. Yet there "is now growing
consensus among economic, foreign policy and military analysts
that oil played a large part in the United States-led invasion of
Iraq," they add.
Leaving aside debates about lives lost and billions of
dollars spent, the war in Iraq alone is producing 43.3 million
metric tons of carbon dioxide per year, they estimate. Of
Americans' daily consumption of about 19.4 million barrels in
2008, the year on which the study focused, about 2.4 million
barrels of oil a was imported from the Middle East.
One potential weakness of their argument, the authors
acknowledge, is that even if the United States halved its imports
from the Middle East to, say, 1.2 million barrels a day, it would
take just as many ships, planes and soldiers to defend the
remainder, so the carbon dioxide emissions related to military
activity would not change.
And if the United States stopped importing oil from the
Middle East, some other consuming nation would probably start
burning jet fuel to defend access, they write.
Figuring out how to calculate military emissions "is not
without its conceptual and assessment difficulties,'' the authors
say. Deciding what proportion of the military emissions are side
effects of importing oil "can only be estimated,'' they write,
and there are "considerable judgment and substantial
uncertainties.''
But between military acquisitions and spending on direct
military activity, about 289,000 tons of carbon dioxide is
released per billion dollars spent, the researchers estimate.
They conclude that in weighing the relative benefits of
using biofuels rather than oil to rein in greenhouse gas
emissions, policymakers must gain an understanding of military
emissions related to oil. Indirect changes in emissions that will
ensue from any change in course "must surely be included in
rational policymaking,'' they write.
Copyright 2010 The New York Times Company
-0- Jul/19/2010 13:12 GMT
