Journal week 9

With the last worksheet given we were asked to find our personal carbon emissions amounts. With electricity as my main source of energy in my home and gasoline to run my car I sadly came to the conclusion that I am giving off a great amount of carbon dioxide on a regular basis. From gasoline alone (and I don’t’ drive that much) my calculations said that I gave off 98.16 pounds of carbon dioxide a DAY and 35,828 pounds a year. This to me was the most shocking number out of the entire set of worksheets. I had no idea that this number was so high and even with a small, light, decent gas mileage car. From electricity I alone used 2118 kWh from coal burning in one year alone. This lead to 847 pound of carbon dioxide from coal each year! My total contribution to carbon dioxide was 36,675 pounds and made me a little sick to my stomach. This means that I would need over 9 acres of woodland to absorb this annual output of carbon dioxide. Lets just say I felt a little guilty and selfish.
Besides the obvious and large ways that I contribute to CO2 in the atmosphere there are many other ways I do as well that are direct or indirect. The purchasing of products that take great energy to produce generally give off a lot of CO2 emissions and my consumption of this product supports those emissions. Other products that I purchase including even food and groceries need to be transported to the store and therefore must at some point give off carbon dioxide. Other things that might not jump to the mind are things like airplanes, ships, trains and other ways of transportation.
I would like to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases that I produce and there are a variety of ways that I could do this. Things like carpooling, walking, or riding bikes or even the bus can help with the transportation area issues. Other things like conserving electricity or consumption can help reduce the amount of carbon dioxide and air pollution that we give off. I think that the districts and cities should push for cleaner air and stricter regulations of the amount and types of pollutants being put out into the air. Companies should be rewarded for cutting back pollution and others should be penalized for excess amounts.