more useful numbers

While the international community holds climate change meetings to decide when to have more meetings, you should know there is something you can do about climate change. Climate change is in our hands. If we don't consume the problem will get better. You may shrug at passing up cheaper oil. You may argue that it is a dumb idea to conserve since you are letting your neighbor get away with more cheap oil, but what is your neighbor really doing with that cheap oil? Buying another hummer? How many hummers does one need to convince everyone what a tough man you are -or think you are? And how many rooms can you add to your house before you get lost in it?

In the previous post I showed how we generate one pound of CO2 for every mile driven. It is an estimate. You use less if you drive a sensible car, but much more if you drive a pickup truck, an overweight luxury sedan, or an SUV. Even if that luxury sedan or SUV is a hybrid. Please don't fall for that kind of stuff. Hybrid means very little for a 5,000 pound car. As for the very rich, what can I say? Showing off is their way of life so there is little hope for them.

You add a pound of CO2 for every mile you drive, so you may wonder how long it takes for that CO2 to be reabsorbed? The numbers should give you further pause. CO2 is absorbed by several means but plants are a key means. And plants are easy to visualize. Just like we converted all different energy sources, electricity, gas, oil, coal, wood, to CO2, we can convert absorption to numbers of trees. An average tree absorbs 1,100 kg or 2,425 pounds of CO2 in 100 years. Yes you read it right, in a 100 years. Or 100 trees for one year. Averages work better here because any one tree's absorption varies a lot. Young and very old trees are less efficient, and in winter trees are resting and absorb very little CO2. But it is the averages that matter.

The average tree can take up 24.25 pounds a year. Let's make it 25 for ease of calculation. That means that if you drive 25 miles a day, it will take 365 trees to absorb that CO2 in one day. 365 trees is more than 1.25 acres of trees at average spacing. The mean commute distance in the US is 32 miles round trip. That would take about 467 trees, or about two acres of trees to offset. That is right, your daily commute needs two acres of trees to offset the CO2 produced.

There are varying estimates as to how many Americans drive each and every day, but according to ABC news there are 220 million of us driving that distance. Let's make it 200 million since a few share the ride. That would translate into 400 million acres of trees to absorb the carbon dioxide produced by our cars alone. According to the USDA the US has 503 million acres of forested land. You need to read USDA definitions carefully, because they include some lands as forest-use that are not really covered in trees. In any case, another 100 million here or there isn't going to make much difference, especially since the USDA earmarks quite a bit of these forests for "use," meaning harvesting of trees. That is right, they want to cut them down, sell them, and eventually burn them.

So not only are we topping out on trees needed for absorption, we are planning to remove a substantial number of those and releasing their carbon back to the atmosphere.

One thing you quickly notice when you read all these reports is how everyone earmarks everything for their own special uses. It is like using money over and over again. It is something my kids are very fond of. They want to use that $20 they got from grandma to buy ice-cream. And then they want to use it again to go to a movie. And then again to buy toys. It seems our government thinks the same way. Maybe it is time to get some adult supervision in Washington.