Even homeless Americans have huge carbon footprints, MIT study finds
.jpg)
This is either really depressing news, or a wake-up call: No matter how hard you work to keep your greenhouse emissions to a minimum, if you live in the United States, you will emit more greenhouse gasses than the world's average per capita baseline. The students in a class at MIT calculated carbon emissions for a range of lifestyles, from super-rich people (Bill Gates and Oprah Winfrey) down through homeless people living in shelters. Because they divided up all of the emissions created by the government evenly, so that each person in the US would bear an equal share of the carbon created by government buildings, road-building, the military, etc, it turns out that just by walking down the street in New York you waste more carbon than the average Earthling.
This adds new weight to an argument that many have been making: individual changes won't add up to a giant difference when it comes to greenhouse gasses; we need to change the very structure of how things operate, from the ground up...
It's Energy Independence Day! 
Green Your 4th of July Celebration
The Importance of Pollination - It's Not Just Bee Sex
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
4-30-2008 @ 7:54AM
Karsten said...
It also leads me to note that in a democratic system such as the USA, any change suggested by law-makers is going to be a pussy-foot compromise. While voting for the law-makers who will do the right thing is VERY important, waiting for the change while doing little in the meantime is going to create change too late. Any individual can change their impact on the environment IMMEDIATELY AND WITH HIGHER IMPACT than any governmental program in the near future.
The complete overhaul of how we live cannot start with the government. It has to start with YOU! If you do not change, don't expect the government to do it either.
Karsten
--
http://www.polluteless.com
Preparing North Americans for the World to Come (while hoping I am wrong about this)
Reply
6-09-2008 @ 7:38PM
Manoj Bhardwaj said...
This is definitely a Rude Wake up call!!
We definitely need to think about our children's thought 10 years from now.They will love to thank us for what ever we do now to reduce the carbon footprints related to our activities.
Manoj Bhardwaj
Reply