Environmental Science 14th Edition by Tyler Miller ,Scott Spoolman

Exercise 16

According to the International Energy Agency, the average American adds 19.6 metric tons (21.6 tons) of CO ₂ per year to the atmosphere, compared with a world average of 4.23 metric tons (4.65 tons). The table on the next page is designed to help you understand the sources of your personal inputs of CO ₂ into the atmosphere. You will be making calculations to fill in the blanks in this table.
Some typical numbers are provided in the "Typical Quantity per Year" column of the table. However, your calculations will be more accurate if you can use information based on your own personal lifestyle, which you can enter in the blank "Personal Quantity per Year" column. For example, you could add up your monthly utility bills for a year and divide the total by the number of persons in your household to get a rough estimate of your own utility use.

Calculate your carbon footprint. To calculate your emissions, first complete the blank "Personal Quantity per Year" column as described above. Wherever you cannot provide personal data, use that listed in the "Typical Quantity per Year" column. Then, for each activity, calculate your annual consumption (using the units specified in the "Units per Year" column), and multiply your annual consumption by the associated number in the "Multiplier" column to obtain an estimate of the pounds of CO ₂ resulting from that activity, which you will enter in the "Emissions per Year" column. Finally, add the numbers in that column to find your carbon footprint, and express the final CO ₂ result in both pounds and tons (1 ton = 2,000 lbs) and in kilograms and metric tons (1 kilogram = 2.2 pounds; 1 metric ton =1.1 tons).