Anything that decomposes creates CO2. You left out factory farms in your list of CO2 production caused by humans. Not only do all the livestock produce methane gas, but they also produce CO2 from decomposing waste. The slaughterhouses also produce CO2 since they have "compost" areas from animal parts that they don't use. Americans eat way too much meat now. From the USDA: "In 2005, total meat consumption (red meat, poultry, and fish) amounted to 200 pounds per person, 22 pounds above the level in 1970." How many people do we have in the US? Around 303 million? That's 6,666,000,000 pounds of meat more than 1970. That is the same as about 5,800,000 cows (entire cows, not just the meat).
I think that people pollute, but I'm not convinced that we cause global warming. I think that we cause a lot of our own health problems by our pollution, but I think the suns activity has more to do with the warming trends than humans do.
But, nonetheless, I don't think it is bad for people to try and do a bit to cut down on pollution in whatever way they can. I drive a lot, but I try to live green otherwise. Examples:
1) We compost our food scraps (whole house is vegetarians, so it's all veg based) to use in our summer garden or to fertilize our yard.
2) We heat our house with a CO2 neutral source- we have a corn stove. The exhaust produces less CO2 than the corn consumes while growing, but it's CO2 neutral when you account for the pollution from growing it and transporting it.
3) We use a lot of compact fluorescents and only have lights on when we need to.
4) We use a/c sparingly. Even in the summer, we typically don't have over a $65 electric bill.
5) We drive too much, but we drive fuel efficient vehicles. We also commute together to work. it's not perfect, but it's better than each of us driving an SUV to work, especially since our cars get twice the mileage as an SUV.
6) We installed low flow shower heads on our showers. Same shower- just uses less water.
7) We throw out less than 1/2 bag of garbage a week. A lot of this is due to the way we eat. We cook from fresh ingredients, so most of the "waste" gets composted. Most of our other waste is cardboard, which goes to recycling (one of the products that *does* actually get recycled). So, there ends up not being much to pitch.
8) I buy a lot of Organic. They can't use petroleum fertilizers on Organic, nor can they use pesticides. I think both are bad for you and our water ways. I'll probably learn at some point that the whole Organic thing is a bunch of bull, but why not try it and see if it helps?
| Move closer to your job. Don't say you can't. You can. You just don't want to |
I don't agree with that. If I were to up and move closer to work right now, I would lose my ass on my house due to the real estate market in Michigan. People also relocate, or their offices move. Moving isn't a trivial expense. What's the point in moving closer to work if you end up bankrupt to do so? Or, if you end up moving from an energy efficient house into an apartment, which are notorious for being very energy inefficient?
I don't think that people need to be "perfect" to make a change in the amount of pollution that we cause, I think that we just need to cut down on our wastefulness.