an interesting article

Sometimes what’s bad for the economy can be good for the planet. Or so argued Lester Brown, president of Earth Policy Institute, yesterday. This environmental trend spotter pointed to several developments that may have escaped our attention as the global economy alternately sputtered and entered periods of freefall throughout the past 18 months.
Trend one: U.S. emissions of carbon dioxide, a leading greenhouse gas, have taken a tumble. They’re down 9 percent since 2007, Brown notes, fueled in part by a couple other developments.
Such as trend two: Americans are buying/keeping fewer cars. During the mid- to late-1990s, automakers sold more than 15 million cars a year. "Then, in 1999, [sales] jumped up to 17 million a year, and remained there for about eight years or so," Brown says. This year: Those sales slumped to a measly 10 million. Meanwhile, U.S. motorists are on track to scrap about 14 million cars this year. So the U.S. fleet could shrink this year by nearly two percent.


read the rest here:http://www.enn.com/lifestyle/article/40601