What Two Tons Means to Me
Last week, I calculated that a sustainable and equitable rate of CO2 emissions would be about 2 tons per person per year. Currently, the U.S. emits just over 20 tons of CO2 per person annually. Of this, according to EPA, 20% (4 tons) is caused by household energy use and about 27% (5.5 tons) is caused by four-wheeled passenger vehicles. The remainder, about 11 tons, is generated by the economy on our behalf, including manufacturing, agriculture, cement and steel production, and transportation of goods both for us and for export.
What would that mean to our lives if we cut back to 2 tons of CO2 per person per year?
First, let's assume that my hypothesis is correct: that 50% of the energy used in this country is wasted and could easily be conserved. That alone would bring our overall CO2 emissions down to 10 tons per capita. But that's still a long way from 2 tons.
Using my own household as an example, for two people we'd be aiming for 8,000 pounds of CO2. That means no more electric or fossil-fuel heat, we'd be limited to wood, solar and geothermal. And no personal automobiles (at least, none that run on carbon-based fuels). It also means that our diet would be both smaller and more localized. Rice and beef would be off the menu completely. And factories would virtually shut down unless they could find carbon-neutral ways to power their operations (solar, tidal, hydrogen, methane recapture, hydro, and geothermal).
An equitable CO2 emissions requirement would have major impacts on our lives— for a while. But I'd bet that if U.S. industry had to find alternative sources of energy, it would. The technology already exists, market-ready or close to it. We would see our supply of cheap goods from China grind to a halt, because the CO2 emissions of moving them would exceed our CO2 budget. And we would see significant economic upheavals as economies and supply matrixes moved from global to local.
On the other hand, we'd see a resurgence of small businesses and small farmers. Opportunities for individuals would multiply (as would the pitfalls of not having a work ethic). The importance of community would resurface. And we'd see an upsurge in one of our nation's greatest resources: innovation.
Over the next few years, surging energy prices will assist us in reducing our CO2 emissions. But without an absolute cap, we're just too wealthy (and too spoiled) to change our ways. After all, we can afford to buy all that stuff.
What we really mean by that is, we expect someone else to live in squalor so we can live better. And that is a moral equivocation that I for one am having a hard time living with. I don't have a universal answer, but I'm going to continue to examine and adjust my own lifestyle with the goal of reaching an emissions target low enough that everyone in the world can do it.
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