Last time we learnt that humans are causing the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere to increase to the extent that the planet is warming. Now, how exactly are we causing emissions to increase? And, since we know what’s causing the planet to warm, why haven’t we stopped it?
Here’s the big problem: EVERYTHING we do emits greenhouse gases. Let me explain…
Think about a typical day: you wake up, get ready, have breakfast, go to work or school, head home, take a shower, maybe binge watch your favourite TV show, have dinner, scroll through your phone for a few hours, and then go to bed. Doesn’t seem like much, does it? But if we take a closer look at each of these things, you might start to notice some things…
All through the night, you’ve most likely got the heater or the air conditioner on, depending on where in the world you live. Say you use an air conditioner - that emits around 85 g of CO2 per hour, so assuming you get your recommended 8 hours of sleep every night, that’s roughly 680 g of CO2 emitted, just in your sleep.
Getting dressed might not directly emit CO2, but the processes that went into making your clothes certainly does. Take a cotton T-shirt for example: from the processes of growing and harvesting the cotton to mass producing the shirt in a factory to distributing it to shops, CO2 is emitted during every single stage.
Then you have breakfast - maybe you pop some bread in the toaster, or turn on the kettle to brew some coffee. That also emits CO2. And don’t forget your refrigerator that’s running 24/7; roughly another 160 g of CO2 per day.
Time to drive out to the office, maybe even drop off your children at school on the way. The average small petrol-powered car emits 100g of CO2 per passenger per kilometre.
Lunch - you head over to your favourite cafe for a nice healthy salad. But before that salad ends up in your bowl, it’s been from a farm where it was grown, to a factory for processing and packaging, then transported to the cafe, emitting CO2 during every stage.
Even taking a shower emits CO2 just to heat your water and pump it to your bathroom!
And perhaps one of the least suspected emitters of all - electronic devices, including your phone. In fact, you’re emitting tiny amounts of CO2 as you’re reading this article right now! While it is true that the amount of CO2 emitted from you scrolling through your phone is tiny, it quickly adds up. And with phones and other devices such as computers and TVs being one of the most commonly used items in the world, you can see why it’s a problem. In fact, internet usage alone accounts for up to 3.7% of global CO2 emissions!
By now you’ve probably noticed that anything that involves energy usage emits CO2 - which is pretty much everything, whether that’s directly or indirectly. This makes it very difficult to effectively cut down on our emissions because absolutely everything we do produces CO2. To find out more about the relationship between our energy usage and CO2 emissions, stay tuned for Climate Change 101’s next article!
Credits:
Image - Freepik
Information - The CO2 Calculator*, BBC Future
*Note: some of the statistics in this article are calculated from this website, however these numbers are based on Japanese electrical appliances, so the exact amount of CO2 emitted may depend on the region you are from. These numbers, as are all the statistics included, are there to give you a rough idea of how much CO2 you emit when using these appliances.
Comentários