Americans emit around 20 tons of carbon dioxide per year. Europeans emit 10. The global average is at around 4.
These are striking numbers, but they don’t mean much to most of us.
What’s a ton of CO2? Does it matter if it’s short or metric?
Weight, of course, is the right way to think about it. If you burn a log of wood, you will be left with some ash and a lot of hot air. Where did the rest of the log go? It’s floating around above you in form of carbon dioxide and various other forms of gunk.
So how much is a ton of CO2 exactly?
Using some standard assumptions, a ton of CO2 comes out to around 16,000 cubic feet at 32 degrees Fahrenheit.
That’s about the size of the average American home with 2,500 square feet of living space. That times twenty is the volume each of us fills year after year: 20 chilly homes of carbon dioxide.
(It’s also a much better answer than the one I gave when asked about it at the Carnegie Council. Thank you, Mischa Woods and Conrad Shultz, for the pointers.)
