Health and Diet Scottish Recipes Ferret for Ferrets


Re: [pf] CO2 by average Americans and rich Americans. A statistic.
by Sharon Flesher
28 November 2000 19:46 UTC

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This is a thread I would like to see pursued. How much discomfort,
inconvenience, lifestyle adjustment, etc., are each of us willing to
undertake to retard climate change or save species?

A few years ago Utne Reader published a little paperback called "100
DIFFICULT things you can do to save the earth" (or something to that
effect). Does anybody have it? If I remember correctly, the top three things
were: get rid of your car, become a vegetarian, don't have children (or
limit your offspring to 1). The publication was a reaction to the plethora
of books and pamphlets on easy things you can do to save the planet. The
"easy" activities are usually things like sorting your recyclables, using
both sides of the paper, turning out the lights, etc. -- all commendable and
necessary, but not enough to do the trick. The point was that real
environmental preservation will require us to make radical, difficult
lifestyle changes (at least those of us in the developed world; many people
in third world countries don't have the choices we do).

In the area in which I work -- transportation reform -- it seems the
barriers to voluntary change are almost insurmountable. I find very few
people -- even committed, off-the-grid enviros -- who are willing to give up
their cars. Of course, many people feel they have no choice due to a lack of
transportation alternatives. But as long as they are supporting the car
culture with their driving, we will continue to have a difficult fight to
win alternatives. People without cars = people on buses = more revenue and
political support for transit = better transit.

I wish I still had that list because I would like to pick a few things from
it that I'm not currently doing and resolve to do it. One thing I've
recently committed to doing is to reduce my daily food intake. I have more
than a few calories to spare in my diet! I'm inspired by David MacC's
example. I don't know that I will be as frugal with food as David, but I
have so much room for improvement that any effort is bound to be noticed!

Sharon Flesher
CarSharing Traverse, Inc.
Traverse City, Mich.
sflesher@traverse.net

"Be the change you wish to see." M.K. Gandhi
David A wrote:
>
> I think one of the obstacles is that people sense there'd be an impact
> on standard of living, and (absent new technologies, of course) I'm not
> sure that's not incorrect. I've been playing around with some
> statistics, below. The first column is CO2 emissions per capita (metric
> tons), and the second is CO2 emissions per GDP (grams/$):
>
> United States     5.51     184
> India             0.24     158
> New Zealand       2.49     141
> Jamaica           1.07     294
> Germany           2.86     156
> Australia         4.78     225
> Swaziland         0.18      44
> WORLD TOTAL       1.07     249
> WORLD (minus US)  0.85     281
>
> That the CO2 emissions per dollar of GDP is about the same for many
> countries, 150-225 g/$, shows that reducing one's CO2 emissions is a
> strong function of reducing one's GDP.
>
> Does this mean that Americans, say, can't reduce their CO2 emissions? Of
> course not--for example, almost all American's increases in CO2
> emissions due to transportation (1990-1997) are due to "light trucks,"
> viz. unregulated SUVs. And the other conservations efforts that David
> Mac suggests. But at some point (again, barring new technologies)
> reducing a country's CO2 emissions is going to mean that they have to
> reduce their "standard of living," as currently defined in that country.
> There are certainly benefits to doing that, and that's difficult to get
> people to consider. I suspect that the typical US citizen's reluctance
> to take global warming seriously reflects that difficulty in a
> significant way.
>
> David
>
> Statistics are from:
> http://web.archive.org/web/20020330204232/http://www.nrdc.org/globalwarming/carbon/appb.asp
> http://web.archive.org/web/20020330204232/http://www.abcnews.go.com/reference/countries
> http://web.archive.org/web/20020330204232/http://www.popin.org/pop1998/
> http://web.archive.org/web/20020330204232/http://www.wto.org/english/news_e/pres98_e/pr98_e.htm