"The world is so big, no amount of human pollution could matter"...

Junkdrawer

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Mon Nov-26-07 11:49 AM
Original message

"The world is so big, no amount of human pollution could matter"...

"The US economy is so big that no amount of corruption or greed could matter."

Seems to me that we're going to be shown the fallacy of both these ideas the hard way.

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Tierra_y_Libertad

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Mon Nov-26-07 12:01 PM
Response to Original message

1. That big, huh?

Edited on Mon Nov-26-07 12:02 PM by Tierra_y_Libertad

It�s an image of Earth taken from the Spirit rover during a sunrise on Mars.

This one from VoyagerII

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LeftHander

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Mon Nov-26-07 12:06 PM
Response to Reply #1

2. maybe so if all we did was urinate and deficate

and left bones behind of things we ate.

then the world would be plenty big...but we don't just do that. Each of us produces tons of trash per year....and individually add tons of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere as a result of consuming the products that produce that trash...

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Junkdrawer

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Mon Nov-26-07 12:07 PM
Response to Reply #1

3. And the atmosphere is as relatively thin as the peel of an apple...

but you get up in a corporate jet, and it all seems so endless...

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90-percent

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Mon Nov-26-07 12:37 PM
Response to Original message

4. Correct me because I'm wrong.........

Correct me because I'm wrong, but doesn't the average American vehicle contribute something like 10,000 ton of emmissions per year?

I remember hearing this on NPR in the last yar or two and I was absolutely floored.

Anybody got any facts about this?

-85% Jimmy

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RaleighNCDUer

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Mon Nov-26-07 12:45 PM
Response to Reply #4

5. That can't possibly be right, as that would require considerably

more than 10,000 tons of fuel, of which the emissions are the waste product. 10,000 tons over a vehicle's life time, including the waste created in the making of the vehicle, now that I could see. 10,000 tons X what? 100 million vehicles?

But I am just guessing. I know nothing.

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Junkdrawer

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Mon Nov-26-07 12:45 PM
Response to Reply #4

6. Here you go... (11,062.86 lbs. or 5.02 tons of CO2)

The average number of miles an American drives in a year is 12,000 miles. <30> This is divided by the average fuel efficiency of the American vehicle fleet, 21 mpg, <31> and then multiplied by 19.36, the amount of pounds of carbon dioxide that is emitted from burning one gallon of gasoline, <32> which equals 11,062.86 lbs. of CO2. After dividing this figure by 2,205, the result is 5.02 metric tons.

http://www.carboncounter.org/offset-your-emissions/calculations-explained.aspx

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