Thursday, July 14, 2005

Opinion - Population and CO2

Something has been bugging me for a while. Humans produce CO2 by breathing (as does every living breathing animal, but lets stick with humans). How much do they produce? About 180 kg per person per year (a little higher for ag societies). Bear with me...
Country..............................Population........................CO2 Output
United States
1900 Population.............76,000,000...................15,200,000,000
2000 Population..........272,639,608....................49,075,129,440

India
1900 Population..........290,000,000....................58,000,000,000
2000 Population.......1,000,848,550..................200,169,710,000

China
1900 Population.........500,000,000..................100,000,000,000
2000 Population.......1,246,871,951....................249,374,390,200

World
1900 Population.......1,600,000,000..................320,000,000,000
2000 Population......6,100,000,000 ...............1,220,000,000,000

So, right now humanity is producing over 1.2 trillion kg of CO2 a year, just by breathing.

According to the same place I got the 180kg per person, the average car produces 2,800kg per year of CO2 (and a lot of other things also). Meaning, that 14 people breathing produce about the same CO2 as 1 car a year. Can you figure where I am heading with this?

Cars
US............................200,000,000.........2,800...........560,000,000,000
Everyone Else........400,000,000.........2,800.........1,120,000,000,000

The larger populations of China and India produce as much CO2 as 160,000,000 cars.

Is it possible that global warming might be caused, in large part, by the fact that world population has tripled in the last century?

*lots of rough averaging here....don't go nuts about it. The point I want to make is that the growth in population should have had a significant impact on the global climate at a basic level, we all produce CO2 and there are a lot more of us now than 100 years ago...

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Don't know the science that well, but if the rest of the world ends up owning and driving cars at the rate we do (about 2 for every 3 people), then the CO2 production would go through the roof.

The most "interesting" thing to do (I just volunteered you for it because it's sooo interesting) would be to compare the worst-case CO2 production to the CO2-absorbing capacity of the world's trees, plants, and shrubs, and maybe even by major region. Report back when you've got something.

I'm very skeptical about the CO2 argument for global warming, because when the GW arguments first came out, the culprit was supposedly something else, but I can't remember what it was.

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