Plant Services - January 2008 - (Page 45) WEB HUNTER The power of element number six Carbon dioxide is a common, but not the only, greenhouse gas W concept of carbon footprint at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ e need to get past the debate about whether the Carbon_footprint, a topic to which we’ll return shortly. observed increase in the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide and other so-called greenhouse gases can be attributed to anthropomorphic Trees versus electrons causes. Regardless of source, laboratories around the world Getting this magazine to your desk requires the hewing are measuring those increases with parts-per-trillion preand processing perfectly good trees, printing words and piccision. Then, we’ve got to get past jawing about the vatures, and burning hydrocarbons to get them to the nearest lidity of any correlation between the increases in concenpost office. No doubt, that chain of events involves the retration and rising temperatures. There’s just lease of lots of greenhouse gases. Maybe you too much rhetoric surrounding these issues. decide you’re going to get your news and inSometimes it all sounds like the crew arguformation via the good old Web. That’s more A simple tally ing about who poked the hole in the hull eco-friendly. Says who? Certainly not Martin of the statewhile the sinking boat takes everyone to pay Stabe, a U.K.-based blogger. One of his essays by-state totals a visit to Davy Jones. points out that the massive, worldwide comsays the country puter system needed to connect your screen No argument matters nearly as much as the way you’re going to cope with the hand you’ve to some location out there in the void on the is putting out been dealt. OK, so what? Things are getting world’s largest disk drive requires a surprising 5,799 million warmer. Crank up the air conditioner, which number of gigawatts. Several other amazing tons of carbon requires more electricity, which requires large-scale tidbits of information await the cueach year. burning more coal, which results in more rious maintenance professional who ventures atmospheric carbon dioxide, which might be to www.martinstabe.com/blog/2006/12/09 jacking up the warming, which requires more and scrolls down to “What is the media’s carair conditioning. And around and around we go. Maybe bon footprint, in print and online?” If you go there, follow that’s not the best way to cope. some of the links in the story. In the interest of broader intellectual horizons, we now get our hands dirty searching for carbonaceous stuff in that How much carbon is that? morass we call the Web. Take advantage of the practical, Last month, I mentioned the Virgin Earth Challenge zero-cost, noncommercial, registration-free resources we’ve and its $25 million prize for producing a worldwide net uncovered. You’ll sound like an expert. Remember, we removal of manmade atmospheric greenhouse gases search the Web so you don’t have to. each year for at least 10 years without any negative unintended consequences (you can read about it at www. plantservices.com/articles/2007/227.html). Then, someThe public encyclopedia where I read that the best answer to this global warming The greenhouse gas situation might not be as bleak as some issue is to stop taking carbon out of the ground and putpeople would have you believe. This good news comes from ting it into the air. That image got me thinking about just a generally reliable source. Did you know that the United how much carbon is involved. So, I dropped in at www. States ranked only 10th in the world based on per-capita eredux.com/states/index.php, a site of unknown parentage carbon dioxide emissions between 1990 and 2004? Also, that purports to have an accurate tabulation of carbon footthe United States ranked 14th in per-capita greenhouse gas prints for each of the 50 states. For example, the site ranks emissions in 2000. So says Wikipedia, the online authorIllinois, with its 230 million tons of carbon output, as fifth ity on so many obscure facts and figures. Where else would in population, 30th in per-capita carbon output and 7th in you learn that the size of your personal carbon footprint is a total carbon output. function of your age? Spend a few moments to research the January 2008 www.PLANTSERVICES.com 45 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_footprint http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_footprint http://www.martinstabe.com/blog/2006/12/09 http://www.plantservices.com/articles/2007/227.html http://www.plantservices.com/articles/2007/227.html http://www.eredux.com/states/index.php http://www.eredux.com/states/index.php http://www.PLANTSERVICES.com
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