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Americans are a busy bunch; we work, we shop, we play and most of us accomplish this with our cars; more than 127 million cars, in fact. Coupled with our SUVs and light trucks numbering approximately 73 million, Americans are armed with over 200 million motor vehicles. And we’re not roadshy. Each vehicle in the United States drives approximately 12,000 miles per year.

I’m not a rocket scientist, but my friend, Amber is, and according to her calculations:

200,000,000 automobiles x 13,048 miles per year= 2,609,600,000,000 miles per year

For those of you who are overwhelmed by zeros (and you’re not alone), that figure is over 2.6 trillion. Americans alone, drive enough to circle the equator of our planet roughly one hundred four million, seven hundred ninety-nine thousand times per year.The average passenger car gets 21.5 miles to the gallon. The average light truck gets 17.2 miles.So now we divide our average mileage (12,500 miles per year) by our fuel efficiency (21.5 miles per gallon for passenger cars) and we find out that each passenger car uses slightly more than 581 gallons of gas per year. And light trucks and SUVs? Excellent question. With an average 17.2 miles per gallon, each one consumes slightly more than 814 gallons of gas per year.
And here’s where things get pretty horrific. Each gallon of gas yields 19.3 pounds of carbon, which resides permanently in our air. So multiply this 19.3 pounds by the 581 gallons of gas that each passenger car uses and you get:

19.3 pounds x 582 gallons = 11,213.3 pounds per year.

Pretty scary, huh?

11,213.3 pounds per year x 127,000,000 cars= 1,424,089,100,000 pounds of carbon

Translation: One trillion, two hundred thirty billion, four hundred fifty two million, two hundred thousand pounds of carbon. Think that’s bad? Light trucks, each utilizing 814 gallons of has per year, have more embarrassing figures:

19.3 pounds of carbon x 814= 15,710.2 pounds per year.

15,710.2 pounds x 73,000,000 light trucks= 1,146,844,600,000 pounds of carbon

So if we add the figures together, Americans are introducing about 2,570,933,700,000 (two trillion, five hundred seventy billion, nine hundred thirty three million, seven hundred thousand) pounds of carbon into our atmosphere. Every. Single. Year.

This does not account for larger, transport vehicles, buses, trains, factory emissions, etc. This is what we do to our environment while driving to work, the grocery store, the movies and our sundry activities. So where do our 2+ trillion pounds of carbon go every year? Unfortunately, not too far from us. Carbon sticks around. Unlike organic material, it will not eventually break down. It remains in our atmosphere, polluting our air, our oceans and in turn, pretty much everything that ends up in our bodies.

This entry was posted Tuesday, November 13th, 2007 filed under: climate change by kumar
tagged with carbon, climate change, global warming, ride sharing |