By Sid Perkins
In recent decades, a large part of the U.S. economy has shifted to providing services rather than manufacturing products. Despite the presumption that the change bodes well for the environment, service industries such as the retail trade are creating just as much planet-warming carbon dioxide as the manufacture and operation of motor vehicles do, a new analysis suggests.
Industrial ecologist Sangwon Suh of the University of Minnesota in St. Paul scrutinized the movement of energy, raw materials, and products through various sectors of the economy. In such an analysis, emissions “that happen behind the scenes can then be taken into account,” he notes.