Was the Recession Good for the Environment?

I'm curious... about many things actually (just ask the people who work with me) but today I'm curious about one thing in particular. Has the recession been good for the environment. Clearly the recession has been far from good news for companies that have gone under, for those who've lost their jobs and those who are struggling to make mortgage payments. It's been a nightmare for the global economy and for government treasuries at all levels. But what about the environment? For instance, is it possible that the recession actually did more to help us make progress on climate change than Kyoto and Copenhagen? Before dismissing my question as flippant consider that...

Business shut downs -- temporary or permanent --- must surely have driven down demand for all forms of energy and knocked back associated greenhouse gas emissions. And even if energy use climbs again as the world's economies crawl out of recession, we're starting from a lower point on the ladder.

Consumers feeling the pinch have cut back on purchases. Demand for most types of products declined over the past 12-18 months. Does this mean that the mountain of castoff items headed to landfill has decreased? And as the supply of recyclable materials diverted from landfill has increased, there have been reports over the past year suggesting that the price these materials (example: used newsprint) command in the market has dropped sharply. This may only be a temporary phenomenon but it should have been good news for manufacturers of recycled products, who would have seen a sharp drop in their input costs. Municipal governments would have had an opposite reaction as the revenues from recycling operations declined.

It's entirely possible --- some would argue likely ---- that there could be some counterbalancing effects. For instance, perhaps in a recession, people don't maintain their cars as well as they should, so emissions go up. Perhaps consumers coped with the recession by buying cheaper, less environmentally-friendly products because that's all they can afford.

Some of us think that perhaps society has gotten rather carried away with consumerism, that we're infatuated with the idea that if we just have more "stuff" we'll be happier, and maxxed out on our credit cards to live the dream. If we were looking for a way to give consumers an ice-cold shower, this recession sure fit the bill. Not so pleasant for some of us, but perhaps the equivalent of a walk in the park for the environment.