Climate change is in the news every day right now, thanks to the new government report that Trump does not “believe”. One thing that the news stories mention is the 2-degree climate goal. According to scientists, 2 degrees is the maximum temperature increase that our planet can take and still support human life. Governments across the globe promised, in the Paris Climate Accord, to do everything possible to keep the temperature increase at 2 degrees. To do that by 2050 (the year I cited in yesterday’s post) we must drastically reduce global carbon emissions. Too bad our current government pulled out of the Paris Climate Accord.
The window to keep the temperature increase to 2 degrees is closing; some say it has closed already. In any event, the time has arrived for everyone to stop contributing to the release of carbon emissions. Our government is not going to help. Only the people can make the difference. We can then vote in a government that will also put the breaks on corporations.
We need a massive global movement to stop climate change, and I am ready to do my part by reducing my carbon footprint. How can I do this? Based on my research I have cobbled a list of the Big 5 problem areas that must be addressed, NOW. You can find information on each of these problem areas all over the Internet.
- Animal agriculture – Because of the carbon emissions at feedlots and also the energy-intensive ag practices, we have to stop eating most animals.
- Gasoline, Diesel, Diesel Mix, Jet Fuels – cars, planes, and the global shipping monster are a climate nightmare.
- Home energy use – natural gas, electricity from coal-powered plants
- Continued Population Explosion
- Consumption of too much stuff from countries that are the worst carbon polluters (like China) – I don’t see too much written about this, but we have to stop the demand for stuff from Asia, where they are burning coal at alarming rates. China, the largest coal user, doesn’t seem fazed by its global pollution. Furthermore, the global transportation machine that brings us all that crap is spewing tons and tons of carbon pollution. Buy used stuff. There is so much out there. Shop at Ebay, thrift stores, and yard sales. If we all emptied out our garages and storerooms we would have plenty of stuff to pass around.
Since having babies is not an issue for me, to reduce my carbon footprint I need to work on the other items: home energy use, eating fewer animal products, car and plane travel, and the consumption of stuff from far-flung places across the globe. Some, of course, are easy. Goodbye beef. It is healthier for me, anyway. Some things I have already addressed, like home enery use. Other things are extremely difficult; in my case, I am a serial traveler, and it will hurt to reduce that. Other things are actually fun for me, like scavaging for used things at thrift stores and online.
Anyway, to verify that I am making a difference, I need to have some facts and figures so that I can create a 2019 carbon budget.
Here are the numbers:
My current estimated use, 15 tons per year
New 2019 goal: half of my 2018 usage, or 7.5 tons
Ultimate goal 1.5 tons (sooner or later we will all be forced to this level, so we may as well start now)
I need to know next, how much carbon each activity on the above list emits. A fun place to start is at the Car Talk website. Their discussion was quite helpful.
Car Talk: So… let’s accept that global warming is caused by greenhouse gasses, chief among them carbon dioxide. Cars emit carbon dioxide as part of their emissions… so cars are a part of the global warming problem. How much CO2 do cars emit?
Adam: Burning one gallon of gas creates 20 pounds of carbon dioxide, and the average car emits about six tons of carbon dioxide every year. But averages don’t tell you much about your own carbon footprint, which is as personal as your fingerprint. What you drive, how you drive, and how much you drive all make a huge difference. Some people reliably get 58 miles per gallon in their hybrids, which perform best in city driving. Others like to peel out of stoplights in their Maseratis, and they’re lucky to get eight miles per gallon.
Car Talk: How does that stack up against heating our houses, flying to Wichita for the annual gopher herding festival, or that deluxe hot tub with turbo jets that most of us secretly covet?
Tom: Heating a house produces about four tons of carbon dioxide per year on a national average, in addition to eight tons for electricity use.
Flying non-stop round trip from Boston to Wichita creates about 1,400 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions, but the total impact is actually twice that, due to other gases, the contrails, and the altitude at which the carbon dioxide is emitted.
Adam: That hot tub, I’m sorry to say, ranks somewhere between the Charles River and Three Mile Island in terms of environmental disasters. The only things worse are plasma TVs.
Car Talk: Plasma TV’s? Really?
Adam: Well, a plasma TV isn’t quite as bad as a hot tub, but, of course, there are lot more plasma TVs out there. A large-screen plasma can suck the same amount of juice as a big refrigerator. When Los Angeles experienced blackouts last summer, one of the culprits was plasma TVs. The utilities underestimated the demand for electricity because they didn’t factor in how much more power-hungry consumer electronics have become.
Let’s run through a few numbers. According to Nielsen, in the average home a television is on for eight hours every day. A plasma TV can draw 400 watts of power. That adds up to about 1,500 pounds of carbon dioxide over the course of a year.
Tom: The average hot tub, on the other hand, uses about 2,300-kilowatt hours per year, producing more than 3,000 pounds of carbon dioxide. Tell us again where we’re supposed to ship that deluxe test model? What do you guys do with all that stuff people send you, anyway?
What a great start! I don’t have a plasma TV or a hot tub, but these figures give me some reference points. It is important to note that these averages are hard to reduce to a household of one person but I will do my best.
Okay, what about animal agriculture? According to this website, food production releases about 8 tons of emissions per household. So, lets divide 8 tons by 4 to get the approximate amount for a one-person household = 2 tons total for food production per person. Half of that (animal agriculture) = 1 ton carbon emssions per year per person for animal agricultue. That may not sound like much, but remember, if your carbon budget is ultimately going to be 1.5 tons per year, the carbon cost of beef becomes ridiculous!
What about the emissions from producing and transporting plastic crap from all over the world, especially China? According to these folks,
“In a new study, researchers found that goods made in China have much higher carbon dioxide emissions than the same products manufactured in other countries. That’s because the factories making them rely on antiquated technologies and processes and source much of their energy from heavy carbon-emitting coal-fired power plants.
One of the worst-polluting culprits identified was petrochemical plants, which produce propylene—the main ingredient in most plastic products—to feed growing demand from first-world countries such as the U.S
To make a pound of propylene in China is 21 times more carbon-intensive than to produce it in the EU,” said Steven Davis, an energy scientist at the University of California, Irvine..”
What China emits is disgusting, and much of it is because of our demand for more stuff. MIT tells us, “Approximately 22 percent of China’s carbon dioxide emissions are the result of net exports. These emissions are categorized as “trade-embodied” emissions because they are produced as a result of goods and services that are exported.
What I have not yet been able to find is how much of that carbon emission can be assigned to the items I consume. Hopefully a genius somewhere someday will calculate that. In the meantime, since I cannot come up with an accurate entry in my carbon budget for crap made in China, I will have to eliminate nearly everything made there. We need to really drop the demand for goods and force them to stop polluting our planet more than anyone else.
Is your head swimming? Mine is. It is time for a quick summary of the approximate carbon emissions of specific activities for a one-person household before making any changes.
Everyday living:
Car (Assuming that those who did their calculations estimated around 15,000 miles per year per car) = 6 tons
Energy use for the average house is 3 tons, but my lifestyle is far less = 1 ton
Non-animal agriculture 1 ton
Animal agriculture 1 ton
Buying crap that comes from China and elsewhere? I am just going throw out a figure because I have no idea at this point. 1 ton.
Plane Travel
2-3 hour flight = .7 tons
Other Travel:
1 ton per 2500 miles via car or van
Bus and Train travel: .3 tons for medium long flights (about half of plane travel)
Unknown at this point: My portion of the carbon emissions from the YMCA where I belong, carbon costs of eating out, staying at hotels and stuff like that!
So if you add all this up it shows that my carbon footprint is around 15 tons per year, which is what I estimated yesterday using the Carbon Footprint Calculators. More or less. It is really hard to say with certainty because all the figures are averages and I certainly don’t live the average lifestyle. I have to start somewhere, and I can get real numbers for the future because I can easily keep track of my 2019 actual usage (e.g., units of electricity, gallons of gas).
Next up, now that I know how many carbon emissions can be attributed to most of my participation in the Big 6, I can figure out how I want to spend 7.5 tons of carbon emissions, my self-imposed carbon footprint total for 2019. That is on the drawing board, but I need a break from all the numbers first! I am more comfortable with the alphabet than I am with numbers, so this has been a stretch for me. Zzzzzzzzz
