Thursday, January 29, 2015

You're born, you emit CO2, and then you die

  Correlation does not mean causation....except when it does


Climate Geoengineering is all about counteracting the effects of CO2 being released into the atmosphere by human activities.  But the huge amounts of CO2 being produced and emitted into the atmosphere every second by human activity is absolutely stunning.  

A good place to gain an inkling of understanding of the rate of CO2 production is at the "breathing earth" website.  This website shows in real time a graphical illustration of the numbers of  births, deaths, and CO2 emissions on the earth.   For instance, over the last 10 seconds four thousand tons of CO2 were emitted into the atmosphere.   And over the last 60 seconds 210 people were born and 47 people died. The website shows a map of the world, and countries light up on the map as people are born or die, or as CO2 is emitted.  China and India flicker on and off like Christmas tree lights.

The not-so-subtle message is that more people living on earth inevitably means greater and greater CO2 emissions.  People are born, they emit CO2, and then they die. 

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