Environmental Science 14th Edition by Tyler Miller ,Scott Spoolman

Exercise 1

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.

Compare your emissions with those of your classmates and with the per capita U.S. average of 19.6 metric tons (21.6 tons) of CO ₂ per person per year. Actually, your answer should be considerably less-roughly about half the per capita value-because this computation only accounts for direct emissions. For instance, CO ₂ resulting from driving a car is included, but the CO ₂ emitted in manufacturing and disposing of the car is not. You can find more complete carbon footprint calculators at several sites on the Web.