Roughly 40% of carbon emissions are under direct individual control — half from transportation and half from electricity and heating in the home (as a nationwide average). An additional few points can be controlled by diet changes.
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Will Brownsberger — State Senator, Democrat, 2d Suffolk and Middlesex District |
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Pursuant to the Global Warming Solutions Act, the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection has begun to produce Massachusetts Greenhouse Gas estimates which appear to be authoritative. Links to online calculators and key numbers for personal carbon budget analysis. For a personal Kyoto compliance amount, figure a little over 5 metric tons — 11,000 pounds — of Co2 per year per person. 55 – 65% of GHG’s from United States agriculture are attributable to domestic livestock (feed exports are not attributed to livestock in this computation). Estimators fairly consistently place agriculture (actual production of crops and animal products) at about 9-10% of the U.S. total of greenhouse gas emissions. Reducing animal product consumption may be a fairly direct route to reducing one’s greenhouse gas footprint and offers collateral health and environmental benefits. Affluent individuals tend to have larger carbon footprints than those less fortunate. 450 ppm is a stretch goal and would require average global emissions over the century to drop more than 1/3 below current emissions. In the scientific community, genuine climate change skeptics are vastly less numerous than those who see sufficient evidence to support immediate action to address climate change. Reduction of vehicle emissions of carbon — through more efficient vehicles, mass transit, car pooling, cycling, etc. — also reduces all other forms of air pollution associated with vehicle exhaust. Summary of legislative and regulatory initiatives in Massachusetts as of November 2007. Long before global warming began to be recognized as a major threat, we had compelling reasons to end our economic dependence on burning of fossil fuels. |