For example, higher humidity leading to greater cloud cover & precipitation? Higher winds?

Interesting thought, but even it we had cheap solar cells we’d probably have to carpet a significant chunk of north america with them. I’m not sure that would go down too well with the general public if,
say, we tried to cover all of New Mexico with solar cells. With any sustainable energy source, you need to look at how much energy you can get from that source. You also need to consider the cost of that source. Even rough numbers are better than nothing.

David MacKay has written a very interesting book about sustainable energy
http://www.withouthotair.com
You can download his book for free.

He also has a shorter presentation on the topic here
http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/mackay/presentations/NnotA/

David MacKay puts real numbers into his book to give a rough idea of how much power can be reasonably generated by sustainable sources like solar, wind, tides, etc.. He then compares that against typical daily usage per person. While his book uses numbers from the UK, you can adjust his numbers for the US and Canada.

For anyone who is giving thought to global warming (on either side of the debate), they must also consider alternative energy sources. As with global warming, one needs to critically analyze any alternate energy source to see if it is viable.

As a thot exercise without going into certifiiable stats, take a closer look at modern technology: If the avg American is spewing 20-25 tons, that’s due to 2.5 cars per household, AC/Central heating, swimming pool, lawnmower and all the other amenities we take for granted.

Likewise for the Euros, their standard of living is less than ours in that the rich will be on par with our avg American, while the low to middle class gets by with less — fewer cars, no pool, lawnmower etc, to include smaller living spaces. So on a per capital basis, yes the Euros expend less emissions than in the US. And given their high population density to available land, they would hit the ceiling before we will.

Example; In 1990, a driver could find a public parking space day or night in any part of Berlin. And traffic jams were a moot point. Explaining to Berliners the traffic jams and 1 hour commutes in DFW was for them unimaginable. 5 years later, Berliners had to factor in an extra 10 – 15 mins for a cross-town trip due to traffic & finding a parking spot. Nowadays, you might as well tack on at least a 1/2 hour plus to make the same trip by private auto compared to 1990. There comes a point where for the avg Berliners, owning a car might not make sense anymore, so that sort of consumption would peak. To wit, there are still plenty of Berliners that have never driven or owned a car, let alone a license because it simply isn’t worth it. In any case, I think they’ve reached the point of no return in that they can’t go back to 1990s levels unless there is a drastic improvement in efficiencies of current amenities. But to take away or ratchet down the standard of living is impossible, even in a socialist environment.

It is fair to surmise that in India, only the rich approximates our consumption, while the vast but growing lower classes are getting by with much less than what an American or Euro would consider acceptable. As the lower classes become affluent, they will want cars, PCs, big screen TV etc. To wit, Tata is betting they will sell a hundred-million new cars within the next couple of years. Tell me that India, with a current population of 1 billion, won’t quadruple their emissions by 2010.

But I digress, the real point that I wanted to ask, just how accurate is this 1 ton per capital? Are they even calculating the emissions that come from burning wood for cooking & heat and other primitive and inefficient methods of consuming energy for basic survival? Seems to me that a poor family of 4 would expend more than even 4 tons of emissions per year.

May be a dumb analogy, but Stern hasn’t even passed the smell test. I mean that literally as anyone who has been in a 2nd or 3rd world country would know. The examples that Stern lauds have a serious case of air pollution that Westerners can’t even begin to comprehend.

My apologies for the bandwidth.