The Carbon Almanac

It’s Not Too Late

0593542517
Seth Godin

Notes

Four factors account for a significant portion of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases released by humans:

  1. coal
  2. combustion
  3. cows
  4. concrete

Only 9% of plastics are ever recycled, inclusive of what has been put in the recycle bin.

Climate Change Actions

Enormous

  • (Revolves around helping to effect legislation change)

Medium

  • Choose the train instead of flying short distances
  • Choose electricity providers generating power from sun and wind
  • Carpool
  • Move your investments away from companies that develop fossil fuels
  • Avoid flying for one year
  • Compost for your community

Small

  • Save paper
  • Recycle
  • Replace incandescent bulbs with LEDs
  • Shop with reusable grocery bags
  • Hang clothing to dry
  • Wash clothes in cold water
  • Replace gas car with hybrid or electric
  • Shop on eBay

Carbon emissions per capita

  • Qatar leads at 32.42 metric Tons
  • Canada = 15.50
  • USA = 15.24
  • Japan = 8.74

Need to reduce global emissions by 45% per capita.

2020 COVID Lockdown

  • 12% reduction in NO2 across China
  • 31.5% reduction in NO2 across 6 major cities in China
  • 1.8 F drop in land surface temperature in the day

“…Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry of the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate, or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country, it measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.”

RFK

Cost of power / mW Hr

  • Solar = $28
  • Wind = $26
  • Gas = $45
  • Coal = $65

Land required for generating electricity (75 – 25 years)

  • Solar = 25.00-8.33
  • Nuclear = 16.66-16.66
  • Coal = 11.11-11.11
  • Wind = 2.90-0.96
  • Hydro = 2.50-0.83
  • Biomass = 0.40-0.13

Because it can be cheaper to throw away merchandise than to repackage, re-inventory, store it, resell it and ship it out again, as much as 5 billion pounds of returned merchandise end up in US landfills every year.

Each passenger taking a roundtrip flight between the Caribbean and Germany produces four metric tons of emissions – the same as 80 residents of Tanzania do in an entire year.

“There’s a lot of purism and hair-shirt wearing in the environmental movement that we have to forego.”

Brian Eno

Ideas

  • Quota on Air Travel = 5 credits per year
    • Same time zone = 1 credit
    • Multiple timezones = 2 credits
    • International = 3 credits
  • Reduce trips to work once per week
  • Compost
  • Cold-Water Washing
  • Lower Water Heater
  • Efficient Heating System
  • Line-Dry