Who Really Worries About Carbon Emissions?
Carbon Footprints – Source: SPPI
The data below is from various carbon footprint calculators scattered about the web and largely based on EPA emissions estimates and conversations. Of all the agitators and propagandists lecturing the common person about their large carbon footprint life styles, not a single one has evidenced their belief in the “climate emergency” by their own behavior. This has been particularly true for President Obama, Al Gore and Hollywood.
Activity CO2 footprint (lbsCO2)
Burn a gallon of gasoline 19.4
Use a kWh of electricity (U.S. average fuel mix) 1.3
Car trip to the grocery store (roundtrip 15 miles) 11.6
Mowing the lawn (1hr, gas engine push mower) 9.7
Watch TV (42” LCD), 4 hrs 1.1
Make a pot of coffee 0.3
Use a desktop computer (CRT screen) 8 hrs 2.1
Use a 75W light bulb for 4hrs 0.4
Fly 1,000 miles 440
Annual refrigerator usage 827
Annual lawn care (mow grass 25 times) 242.5
Annual desktop computer usage (1,000 hrs) 260
Annual TV usage (42” LCD, 1000hrs) 406
Annual Coffee (365 pots per year) 109.5
Annual usage of 75W light bulb (1,500 hrs) 146.3
Annual car usage (12,000 miles @ 25mpg) 9,391
Annual home heating/cooling 30,000
Average American per year 45,000
Obama Entourage to India (flights only) 18,671,400
Obama Entourage to India (estimated, all sources) 27,921,100
U.N. Climate Confab (Copenhagen) 89,100,000
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Does this mean that it is worse than we thought?
I love my vibrams. just like barefoot. ease into running though to allow calves to adjust.
Someone should make a visual of the greenies’ (Gore, Obama, etc.) individual annual carbon footprint, in comparison with “the rest of us”, and in comparison with people in other countries – give things a visual perspective. (IE, see this six pixel long line, this is the average lithuanian carbon footprint. See this dash, this is the average American… see this line that goes half way down the screen, this is Gore. You’ll be scrolling a while to see all of Obama’s…)
For me, its not so much that they don’t live the lifestyle they preach to others. For me its that they holler about rising seal levels, desert expansion, crop failure, cut your CO2 if not for yourself for your grandchildren. Now I ask, if they truly believed their own rhetoric, why aren’t they, with all their wealth, buying up high altitude properties in northern climes? If not for themselves, what of their grandchildren? Why aren’t northern universities over whelmed with applications from climate researchers who want to move themselves and their families to a safer place? Am I to understand that they, who know more about the disaster they foretell than anyone, don’t care about securing some sort of future for their grandchildren?
I would hate to think that such public figures, leaders of society and science both, have so little regard for their own kin. In fact, I hate thinking that so much that I just won’t. It would be much nicer of me to believe that they just don’t believe themselves.
We need a league table of the fastest “It’s Worse than We Thought” comments.
(Well, until someone like Gavin decides that it is necessary to remove timestamps on comments, in order to obfuscate such facts)
“Mowing the lawn (1hr, gas engine push mower) 9.7”
Of course, an additional 30lbs CO2 exhaled by the pusher of the mower! (I prefer my ride-on)
There are no flies on Barack
Layman’s question here: How can you get 19.4 pounds of carbon from a gallon of gasoline that weighs far less than that?
Green Sand,
Are you sure?
Sorry, just answered my own question with some help from Google:
from: http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/co2.shtml
“It seems impossible that a gallon of gasoline, which weighs about 6.3 pounds, could produce 20 pounds of carbon dioxide (CO2) when burned. However, most of the weight of the CO2 doesn’t come from the gasoline itself, but the oxygen in the air.
When gasoline burns, the carbon and hydrogen separate. The hydrogen combines with oxygen to form water (H2O), and carbon combines with oxygen to form carbon dioxide (CO2).
A carbon atom has a weight of 12, and each oxygen atom has a weight of 16, giving each single molecule of CO2 an atomic weight of 44 (12 from carbon and 32 from oxygen).
Therefore, to calculate the amount of CO2 produced from a gallon of gasoline, the weight of the carbon in the gasoline is multiplied by 44/12 or 3.7.
Since gasoline is about 87% carbon and 13% hydrogen by weight, the carbon in a gallon of gasoline weighs 5.5 pounds (6.3 lbs. x .87).
We can then multiply the weight of the carbon (5.5 pounds) by 3.7, which equals 20 pounds of CO2!”
I got a C in high school chemistry and that was a long time ago!
I immediately winced when I saw the picture of the “toe” shoes. I can’t stand anyone touching my feet. Worse, I can’t take having things between my toes. Flipflops make me cringe. I have VERY tender, sensitive toes. I once stepped on a yellow jacket that stung me at the base of one of my toes and I cried for hours. I shudder to think of my feet being in those shoes. To me, it would be the worst kind of torture. I prefer my toes wrapped up like a baby in a blanket thank you.
When Al Gore gave a talk in Manila about 5 months ago, he emphasized, “we must put a price on carbon.” He means of course, “you have to buy carbon credits from our carbon trading companies and banks.” A Filipino climate official/bureaucrat who gave a talk in NYC early this week posted in his facebook status, that many of the audience in their conference are bankers and carbon traders. They’re still hoping for mega-billion $ from carbon cap and trade.
Billy Ruff’n, according to answers.com a gallon of gasoline at 68 deg. f weighs about 6.15 lbs.
I wonder how those carbon numbers are calculated?
Perhaps the gasoline poundage accounts for the costs of extraction, refining, transportation, and punitive taxation. Much as the Indian Entourage Odyssey figure does not account for the positive effect of having the many non-productive busy bodies in a different hemisphere for a few short days.
Think climatology math – not your normal math. The following guide may help:
1. Select result
2. Create supporting evidence
3. Broadcast
(Top secret information obtained from the UEA)
Billy Ruff’n says:
November 4, 2010 at 6:50 pm
By mixing it with O2 to ‘burn’ it, then not understanding the difference between CO2 which is odourless, colourless and harmless, with Carbon which is black and nasty (sunless compression for millions of years – it can then get quite clear and sparkly!)
Oh, thanks Billy.
Here in Australia we are being pressured as a nation by the left to act unilaterally on CO2 even though it would clearly be only a token gesture given China’s stance. Yet somehow those same left individuals refuse to act unilaterally as a personal act themselves, because they can see that it would be a pointless token gesture. Seems pointless token gestures are fine as long as its someone else making them.
Who really cares about carbon emissions?
As I believe Nonoy was alluding to, those who can profit from it.
Pamela Gray says:
November 4, 2010 at 7:02 pm
Wear ’em both inside and outside and comfortable as all heck ‘cept they don’t look that cool.
http://www.crocsshoes.co.nz/whycrocs.html
Billy Ruff’n says:
November 4, 2010 at 6:50 pm
Simple enough. Your basic hydrocarbon of heavier weights, gasoline and the like, comprises one carbon atom attached to two hydrogen ones [CH2] and linked together in a carbon to carbon atom chain, except at the ends.
When one molecule of CH2 burns you get one molecule of H2O and one of CO2 for which the change in molecular weight of 14 for the CH2 is roughly a loss of 2 from the hydrogen[H =1] formation of water and the addition of 32 from the oxygen, 16 each, and since carbon is 12 the change is, again very roughly per CH2 link, from 14 to 44.
Thus by approximate weight on combustion:
C H2 [14] + 3O [48] goes to CO2 [44] + H2O [18]. Apologies for the unconventional notation.
So the weight of the CO2 produced is about three times the weight of the hydrocarbon fuel depending on the chain length. Paraffins vary widely in their composition, so this is far from exact: it is merely to illustrate the general point.
So I hope this clear and helps.
Kindest Regards
I wonder if this includes the 34 Navy warships sent to India as reported by Drudge?
http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/34-warships-sent-from-us-for-obama-visit-64459
There’s something that occurred to my wife, who is far clever than I am; if we just cut down on our use of Obama…………. (I was merely about to point out my shoe size would indicate I must use up a greater amount of carbon as there must be a direct correlation between shoe size 14E, and the force placed upon a gas pedal, but that violates the KISS principle, whereas my wife’s suggestion cuts directly to the heart of the matter.)
Burn a gallon of gasoline, 19.4# CO2
Car trip to the grocery store (roundtrip 15 miles), 11.6#
11.6# / 15mi = 0.773#/mi
19.4#/gal / 0.773#/mi = 25.1 mi/gal
That’s the “one size fits all” figure, 25 mpg? What, do I have to start riding a scooter to offset my old pickup?
There should be a fart stock exchange. I think some of the old guys in Washington DC fart more than others. Their fart footprint is greater than others.
Now I have a reason not to cut the grass. Yipee!