This information
is taken from an enlightening article, “Counting
Carbons,” by Richard Conniff in the August
2005 issue of Discover: The author notes: “Experts
on greenhouse-gas emissions tell me that every time
my car burns a gallon of gasoline, I am putting
more than 25 pounds of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere
as well as a smaller amount of methane, nitrous
oxide, and various other toxic gases.” He
ponders why this can be so when a gallon of gas
weighs about four times less. He finds: “Gasoline
and jet fuel are about 90 percent carbon. Combustion
causes almost every atom of carbon in the fuel to
combine with two atoms of oxygen, producing carbon
dioxide.” This adds up to about 19 pounds
of CO2 with the rest of the weight coming from manufacturing
the gas and transporting it to market.
The author includes illustrations which show what
amount of carbon dioxide is produced annually by
households, household appliances and transportation.
This is based on one kilowatt-hour of electricity
producing 1.64 pounds of CO2. A refrigerator produces
2,032 pounds, a clothes dryer 1,770, an electric
stove 1,600, a large TV 525 and a computer 196.
The article states that in appliances that are always
left on, like TVs, computers and stereos, “60
percent of their electricity is consumed while the
devices are not in use.” A typical American
house, which in the last 25 years has increased
in size from 1,740 square feet to 2,330 square feet,
puts a total of 28,350 pounds of CO2 into the atmosphere.
This includes air conditioning, space heating, water
heating and lighting and appliances. A midsize car
driven 12,000 miles a year produces 12,350 pounds
of CO2, while a new SUV driven 15,000 miles the
first year produces 22,050. A domestic airline flight
produces 270 pounds of CO2 per passenger.
• In the
same vein, this information comes from “Going
Local on a Global Scale” by Kirsten Schwind,
from the Spring/Summer 2005 issue of Backgrounder,
a Food First newsletter. We are using only a small
part of a much larger article:
“If Iowans bought just 10 percent more of
their food from within the state, they could collectively
save 7.9 million pounds of carbon dioxide emission
a year. The Japanese environmental organization
Daichi-o-Mamoru Kai (The Association to Preserve
the Earth) found that if Japanese families consumed
local food instead of imported food, the impact
would be equivalent to reducing household energy
use by 20 percent. [A] surprising amount of trade
is duplicative and ecologically wasteful. For example,
Heinz ketchup eaten in California is made with California-grown
tomatoes that have been shipped to Canada for processing
and returned in bottles. In one year the port of
New York City exported $431,000 worth of California
almonds to Italy, and imported $397,000 worth of
Italian almonds to the United States.”
• An article that came to us by way of the
Internet stated that in July the USDA declared all
of Illinois except for one county a disaster area
because of loss of corn crops due to “extreme”
drought. Rainfall from March through June was about
half the normal level. The governor of Illinois
said that “more than 117,000 farmers have
reported production losses.”
• Also
from the Internet comes an interview with James
Howard Kunstler, author of Long Day’s Journey
Into Night (about the effects of Peak Oil). The
interviewer is Amanda Griscom Little. We present
here just two sections of a much longer interview,
which can be accessed at http://www.truthout.org/issues_05/printer_052705EC.shtml:
“Ever since the end of World War II, we’ve
embarked on this project to build ourselves a drive-in
utopia—an economy based on suburban land development,
eight-lane freeways lined with fry pits and hamburger
shacks and a national big-box chain retail system.
It has flourished because of two things: extraordinarily
cheap energy and reliable supplies of it, and relative
world peace. That has enabled big-box stores to
develop 12,000-mile manufacturing and supply chains
with the cheap labor overseas. Wal-Mart can move
4,000 TV sets from China to Wilkinsburg, Penn.,
and keep this tremendous stream of products going
around the country with truckers who operate their
warehouses on wheels. The system works only because
it’s cheap to transport stuff.”
In answer to
“If technology can’t dig us out of this
problem, what will?” Kunstler answers: “The things that will help us the most will
be finding a new scale of living and a new way to
rebuild local, cohesive communities and cottage
industries around them. We will need a new infrastructure
for daily life, a new place for the human spirit
to dwell and rest in for a while.”
• An article in the May/June
2005 issue of School Pesticide Monitor says that
outside of a hospital setting, the use of anti-bacterial
soaps is not necessary and may even be damaging.
Triclosan is the common ingredient in these products
and has been found to be linked to dioxins. “Researchers
who added triclosan to river water and exposed it
to ultraviolet light found that a significant portion
of the triclosan was converted to dioxins, raising
fears that sunlight could transform triclosan to
dioxins naturally. Another serious health threat
stems from interactions between triclosan and tap
water. [Dishwashing soaps can contain triclosan.]
A new study finds that triclosan reacts with chlorine
molecules in tap water to form chlorinated dioxins,
which are highly toxic forms of dioxin.” “The
same study also found that the combination of tap
water and triclosan produces significant quantities
of chloroform, which is a probable human carcinogen.
Production of chloroform and dioxins may also be
a problem in pools, where there are high levels
of chlorine that can react to triclosan residues
on people’s skin.” The article mentions
that overuse of triclosan can also lead to increased
allergies and asthma and “may produce the
emergence of bacteria resistant to antibiotics.”
A Girl Scout science project in Minnesota “found
that while anti-bacterial soap kills 99.6% of germs,
regular soap kills 99.4% of germs.”
• From the May/June
2005 issue of World Watch:
- The retail price of bread
made from one bushel of wheat in Canada, 1975:
$30
- Farmers’ price
for one bushel of wheat in Saskatoon, Canada,
1975: $3
- Retail price of bread
made from one bushel of wheat, 1999: $90
- Farmers’ price
for one bushel of wheat, Saskatoon, Canada, 1999:
$3
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