Does anybody know or the way to figure out what amount of CO2 do I contribute to the atmosphere while I am living? I heard that some expert say that it will be helpful for global warming if we all become a veguteruan. I don't quiet understand the theory behind it, However, my guess is that animal produce eat plants that absorb Co2 and produce CO2. I am curious how much I contribute to global warming in my life time.
Eunyoung
What Amount of CO2 Do I Emit to the Atmosphere?
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Eunyoung,
As best as I can understand it the argument in favour of us humans contributing less C02 in our lifestyles by being vegetarian hinges on two principal factors. The first ( and most powerful) is that a great deal of the meat we consume is raised intensively ( pigs, poultry, cattle). The gain maximum yield from these animals
(and the ethical considerations behind this are considerable and persuasive to me too, so this may colour my interpretation), they are fed a high protein diet. Most of the leguminous feedstocks ( soybean, and so on) are produced on soil with a high artificial nitrogenous fertiliser. In Australia at least, the amount of such fertiliser used on crops here has doubled over the last 6 years. This fertiliser, often ammonium nitrate is produced by a process known as the Haber-Bosch technique and this chemical reaction is highly endo-thermic, that is it requires a great deal of energy to make it happen. A report published by Sydney University and Commonwealth Science and Industry Research Organisation called Balancing Act, gave some very interesting figures. The total industry CO2 emissions for a particular year ( I don't have that year but the proportions are probably still valid) were 550 Mega tonnes. Of this 130 Mt were contributed by Electricity production, 80 Mt by transport but a staggering 180 Mt was contributed by the livestock production. The same publication showed the following comparison on how we can contribute best to cutting our personal emissions. Slashing our electricity use in half would save 1 Mega tonne a year Reducing our petrol/gasoline usage from $100 per month to $20 would save 2 Mega tonnes per year. Switching to a vegetarian diet would save 6 Mega tonnes per year. Peter Singer in his book the Ethics of what we eat, makes a similar comparison in changing vehicles from a conventionally fuelled medium sized Toyota car, to a Toyota Praeus ( duel gasoline, electricity), would save 1 tonne of C02 but changing to a vegan diet would save 2 tonnes. Obviously such calculations would have lots of questionable variables. Some vegan food has a lot of carbo embodied in it dure the miles it has travelled. Some meat is grown, slaughtered and processed locally and possibly raised via organic or biodynamic means. Which raises the second factor regarding possible emissions advantages of vegetarian diets. Vegetables production tends not to be dominated by large agribusiness like a lot of livestock production. The global mechanism for soy bean production alone, embodies many miles of transport across the world and a lot of forest destruction to make room for the large scale agriculture. When that production is in previous rainforest soil, the needs for artificial fertiliser supplement is intense, so the calculation becomes a function of the fertiliser input, the miles travelled and the forest destruction (ie. biosequestration lost). This is a rather long and involved response to your question, but I hope this and other contributions on the topic make some sense for you.
Cheers,
Patrick
This is a very good point you raise Bruce and I personally am very grateful for it. With such discrepancy it makes it easy for the nay-sayers to pour scorn on the issue. Airline travel in particular is open to this sort of problem and people attempting to mitigate the harm of their travel, naturally opt for the smallest figure offered as this is not only cheaper but tends to salve their conscience to a greater degree. An issue was raised in a Sydney paper a few weeks ago which I would appreciate some comment on. In Sir Nicholas Stern's paper on the economic cost of attacking climate change, he specifically cited the emissions cost of air-freighting kiwifruit from NZ to Britain. NZ farmers were not happy of course and a lamb producing organisation from NZ claimed that they can fly lamb to Britain at a lower carbon cost that locally produced (ie. in Britain) lamb. This defies belief but I would dearly like to know how such a calculation can be made. Perhaps the NZ study focused on a worse case scenario in Britain and compared it to the best case scenario in NZ, but this type of calculation needs to be very transparent so we can see what the fudge factors are. Thanks for this information Bruce.
Patrick
You may find the following recently released evaluations of interest: Voluntary Offsets for Air-Travel Carbon Emissions: Evaluations and Recommendations of Voluntary Offset Companies by Tufts Climate Initiative A Consumer's Guide to Retail Carbon Offset Providers for Clean-Air Cool Planet Google the titles to get a PDF of each report.
Best,
Stephan
This is a critical issue, and as Bruce notes, one steeped with significant problems. My area of expertise involves sustainable transport, and the majority of calculators and/or tools fail to recognise the very significant impact of "cold start" emissions. The first 2k of vehicle travel produce far more emissions than subsequent kilometres. As such, not all kilometres are created equal, and straight-line calculators do not pick this up (nor do they pick up similar issues such as driving conditions, idling time, etc.). Of course, this is not just a math question, but has important policy implications. For example, should more transport programs target short trips, such as neighbourhood shopping trips or trips to drop the kids at school.
Kevin Luten
UrbanTrans ANZ
Melbourne, Australia
www.urbantrans-anz.com
Today's NY Times mentions Zerofootprint: http://www.zerofootprintoffsets.com/calculator.aspx http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/15/technology/15energy.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Curt
...
Eunyoung Kim asked a very important question in his recent message. It's one each of us should ask -- and answer accurately. A quick Google search will reveal that there are many online carbon calculators. I have learned that there are SUBSTANTIAL and disturbing discrepancies in the results provided by some of the highest-Google-ranked US calculators, and the same may be true in other countries. I developed a simple test scenario of demand for a 2-person family living in a single-family home. State of residence: California Electricity use: 1,000 KWH/year Natural gas use: 1,000 therms/year Gasoline use: 1,000 gallons/year Air travel: 10,000 miles/year I tested 7 online calculators, and the pounds of CO2 reported for each activity ranged as shown below. Electricity (3,800 - 14,690) Natural gas (10,940 - 13,044) Gasoline (17,560 - 19,600) Air travel (3,800 - 13,600) Some calculators strictly calculated CO2 production. Others calculated CO2 for most activities but switched to an "impact" measurement for air travel because combustion of jet fuel 6 miles into the atmosphere has more consequences than combustion at ground level. I believe that the best calculator in this group is Acterra's ( http://www.cool-it.us/index.php ). It is the only one that did not produce either the highest or lowest value for any of the 4 CO2-emitting activities. The Acterra calculator's results for the test case were: Electricity (6,527 pounds) Natural gas (11,708 pounds) Gasoline (19,564 pounds) Air travel (6,160 pounds) When I contacted some of the providers of inaccurate calculators I did not receive responses except from the Bonneville Environmental Foundation, which quickly corrected the problem I identified in their calculator.
References: The calculators I tested were:
Acterra http://www.cool-it.us/index.php
Bonneville Environmental Foundation https://www.greentagsusa.org/GreenTags/calculator_intro.cfm CarbonCounter.org http://www.carboncounter.org/offset-your-emissions/personal-calculator.aspx
Carbonfund.org http://carbonfund.org/site/pages/calculator/
Eco Silicon Valley http://www.ecosiliconvalley.org/carbon_calculator.html Safeclimate.net http://www.safeclimate.net/calculator/
The Climate Project http://www.climatecrisis.net/takeaction/carboncalculator/
Best Regards,
Bruce Karney
[email protected]
+1 650 450-0332 (mobile)
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+1 650 903-0954 (fax)
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Mountain View, CA 94041 USA