Lessening the Carbon Gridlock in the USA

Americans drive over a trillion miles each year. Today the Washington D.C. area has the worst traffic jams - commuters spend 82 hours each year stuck in gridlock.  We have also another form of carbon gridlock.  Our Congress is not addressing our international climate crisis. Tragically many Americans today deny there is any present danger despite the alarming and increasing scientific evidence. 

Worldwide we emit ten billion metric tons of CO2 while we were discharging in the early 1990's six billion metric tons of carbon. For ten centuries up to the industrial revolution climate scientists observed carbon dioxide around 280 parts per million (ppm).  By 1992, CO2 levels reached 350 ppm.  Because of these increases our global temperatures have risen almost 1 degree resulting loss of half the Arctic ice cap, and tens of thousands of cubic miles of Antarctica ice, and hundreds of millions of acres' of our oxygen producing trees.


President Obama has made an "ambitious but achievable goal." Cars and light trucks are supposed to have the fuel efficiency on the average of 54 percent per gallon in the next decade according to new rules by the Department of Transportation.  According to the White House's new rules they calculate that the U.S. will lower our emissions by twenty-six percent by 2025. 


Sweden has reduced their emissions by about twenty-three per cent in the past twenty-five years while their economy has grown more than fifty-five per cent.

Close to home how we collectively best manage our emissions has global significance. Years ago there was a Pogo cartoon with a picture of an oil tanker in a backyard, and the caption read, “We have met the enemy and it is us.” 


Nearly four decades ago one of my environmental science text books alerted me to oil polluting my local watershed of Little Falls in Bethesda, Maryland, which ends into the major drinking water reservoir for the nation’s capital.

Each year according to EPA, Americans generate 1.6 million tons of hazardous household waste (HHW) including e-wastes, used oils, paints, cleaners, batteries, and pesticides. Also there are many small businesses and farms generating hazardous waste and exempt from managing their stuff if it is less than 100 pounds per year of harmful materials. Presently it is believed that a small percent of this toxic material is recovered, and the cost to do so can be expensive. Improper disposal of this non-point pollution threatens public health and the environment in many ways that must awaken us to this real terror in our very homes. 

We use numerous types of harmful petroleum-based chemicals that are dangerous in their disposition and/or emissons. An EPA study documents that many petroleum-derived products pose an elevated cancer risk to two-thirds of Americans. Roughly 200 million people are regularly exposed to some 32 toxic chemicals. 


The good news is that people now are driving less. We consumers of harmful products must safeguard the health of our families and communities. There is no more critical time frame to begin to protect our earth and ensure future hope. We are the source of this carbon traffic jam and its solution. We all benefit if we follow Sweden's example.  Let's untaggle America's carbon gridlock with hundreds of millions of conserving acts.  

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Page County Landfill Story

Despair in Repair

Renewed Light