LiveScience: A mild winter, new car efficiency standards and the continued switch from power plants run by coal to those fueled by natural gas, a cleaner-burning fuel, were behind a 3.8-percent drop in U.S. carbon dioxide emissions in 2012, announced by the U.S. Energy Information Administration Monday (Oct. 21).
The drop was the second largest since 1990, beat out by the drop of 7.1 percent in 2009, which was attributed in large part to the recession that hit the country that year. Emissions have dropped...