Glen Peters, Steve Davis and Robbie Andrew synthesize the key differences between studies of CO₂ emissions in trade and provide a consistent set of estimates using the same definitions, modeling framework, and data. Included are new calculations of carbon physically present in trades wood, crop and livestock products.

Data from detrital zircon ages, paleocurrent trends, and sandstone petrofacies show that the Colton Formation in northeastern Utah represents the culmination of a persistent pattern of sediment transport northward during Cretaceous and Paleogene time (70-60 Ma). Details provide new insights on topographic and hydrologic evolution of the Laramide foreland.

CO₂ emissions from burning fossil fuels has been almost continuously increasing with time since fossil fuels were first used by humans. Despite efforts to reduce emissions, global emissions continue their general increase with time. This synthesis explores our knowledge of these emissions in terms of why there is concern about them; how they are calculated; efforts to inventory them; their global, regional, and national totals at different spatial and temporal scales; how they are geographically distributed; and associated uncertainties.

Using nearly 5,000 oxygen isotope analyses performed over the past decade, we created maps that trace the development of topography of western North America over the past 60 million years. The data shows that the landscape west of the modern Rockies grew into a rugged and high mountain range bordered on the west by a high Sierra Nevada Mountains and on the east by large lake basins that captured water draining these growing highlands. Only in the past 10-15 million years has the extension of the Basin and Range Province caused the collapse of the high plateau.

Nations report and assume responsibility for CO₂ emissions from fossil fuels that are burned within their sovereign terrritory. But because both fossil fuels and consumer goods manufactured with fossil energy are commonly transported internationally, nations where fossil fuel resources are extracted or where the goods made with fossil energy are consumed may benefit from (and yet disclaim) emissions that occur elsewhere.

Carbon dioxide emissions happen where fossil fuels are burned to provide energy. But goods and services made with that energy are often exported to be consumed elsewhere. Commenting on a study by Peters et al., we replot their results to show that developed country emissions still exceed developing country emissions when you consider imported goods.

Fifty-five million years ago a river as big as the modern Colorado flowed through Arizona into Utah in the opposite direction from the present-day river. By analyzing the uranium and lead isotopes in sand grains made of the mineral zircon, we were able to determine that sedimentary deposits in Utah and southwest Arizona came from the same source: igneous bedrock in the Mojave region of southern California.

What if we never built another CO₂-emitting device, but the ones already in existence lived out their normal lives? We calculated the amount of carbon dioxide expected to be released from existing energy infrastructure worldwide, and then used a global climate model to project its effect on the Earth’s atmosphere and climate.

Agricultural intensification since 1961 has increased yields so much that the area in crops has not needed to change, even as demand has soared. As a consequence, intensification of agriculture has prevented deforestation that we estimate would otherwise have emitted 161 billion tons of carbon to the atmosphere.

Over a third of carbon dioxide emissions associated with consumption of goods and services in many developed countries are actually emitted outside their borders. Products imported by the developed countries of western Europe, Japan, and the United States cause substantial emissions in other countries, especially China. On the flip side, nearly a quarter of the emissions produced in China are ultimately exported.

In the past decade, an extensive dataset of O, C and Sr isotope stratigraphies has been from sedimentary basins throughout the Paleogene (~65-40 Ma) North American Cordillera. In this study, we present new results from the Piceance Creek Basin of northwest Colorado, which record the evolving hydrology of the Eocene Green River Lake system. We then draw conclusions about the evolution of Cordilleran drainage patterns as the modern topography of the Rocky Mountains developed.

The isotopic composition of 40-60 million year-old lake deposits in Utah may reflect the north-to-south progression of topography and drainage rearrangements as magmatism swept southward through Montana and Nevada and increased the mean elevation of catchments that drained east into the lakes of Utah.

Basin development and lake hydrology in the Laramide foreland were characterized by large-scale changes in Cordilleran drainage patterns capable of confounding isotope paleoaltimetry. In the North American Cordillera of the Paleogene, for instance, it's likely that (1) changing topography in areas far from foreland lakes strongly influence the isotopic records of lake sediments and (2) sources of lake water became more distant over time, perhaps correlated to the southward sweep of magmatism in Montana and Nevada.

A publication of The Climate Conservancy, which I co-founded with a goal to label consumer products with their carbon footprints. This work was conducted with data from New Belgium Brewing Company, for whom we assessed the carbon footprint of the well-known Fat Tire Amber Ale. We prepared a detailed report.