I need to come up to speed on the CO2 contributions by aviation versus autos.

Like the amount of fuel burned per day by the airline industry and the amount of CO2 that dumps into the atmosphere. Same with the autos. And cows (methane) if you know it.

Basically, which of the three contributes the most to the greenhouse effect?

Data greatly appreciated, opinions not so much ;-)

Aggregating sites or links please.

TIA.

Greg

Yep... reading the truncated thread title -- I keep seeing Palin instead of Plane.. :)

Cows, or to be more specific, agriculture in all its manifestations is the biggest contributor to green house gas emissions. This stat includes losses through deforestation, release of methane and CO2, and destruction of soil that would otherwise capture CO2.

"Data greatly appreciated, opinions not so much ;-)"

It's in here somewhere.

http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/forums/thread_display.html?forum_thread_id=12706

Heh. Ken, as soon as I read your post and saw you linked to a thread, I knew it just had to be the Great Carbon Flame War.

Great Carbon Flame War... Wasn't that Greg's intention for starting this thread all along?

If there ever comes an official "end" to the War, I think I might take on the task of printing it out and making it a book.

Greg,

Can you give us some idea of what you want the answer to be, so that we can provide the appropriate data?

Thanks!

"Can you give us some idea of what you want the answer to be, so that we can provide the appropriate data?"

That was exactly the question asked back in 2002!! "Mr. President, can you give us some idea of what you want the answer to be, in regards to Iraq's WMD, so that we can provide the appropriate data for Mr. Powell's presentation to the UN?"...

Edited by ben2world on 03/07/2013 23:13:43 MST.

It's easy to find this data, no mysteries: Which industries and activities emit the most carbon?. that links to a nice graphic, which I think may work better for some people: world greenhouse gas emissions by industry/source. Check the large version, it has neat graphics that show all the distributions.

Ag is about 25% you'll see, though of course I'm sure you can find more fine grained analysis that might take into account forest cover lost etc. Transport 15%, electricity 25%. Translated, that means OUR daily lives and consumption patterns are the primary cause, overwhelmingly. And yes, moving production of the stuff we buy out of sight to China still counts. I thought transport would be higher, closer to 25%, but I guess globally it isn't.

Here's the google search: "co2 emissions by industry" (stupid bpl forum software won't take the actual search link) so you can click around yourself and see what you find, but honestly, when I see a question like this posted, I have to scratch my head, it's not hard to type in a question to google, just phrase it in clear english and hit enter.

Methane release from ocean floor and permafrost defrosting may tilt this a bit in the coming years, I believe that's the main question now, how much and how quickly methane will get released, some of this data is 2005 vintage, and they have more data now, so you might look around more. I'm not sure how those charts are for methane, but I believe CO2 is the primary agent at this point, until we hit certain tipping points at least.

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/issue/
http://realclimate.org/

will have decent current analysis and breakdowns of various issues. There's other decent sources, but those two aren't bad because they are run by real people who actually do the work, not flakes and scoundrels.

Google works reasonably well for such questions, most of the information is public and easy to locate. You can drill down into the questions by refining your searches by adding more key words, like methane etc.

[added]
ah, this is better, that's closer to what I thought, from the EPA: Greenhouse Gas Emissions. That shows the usa, which is closer to what I thought, 40% electricity, 31% transport. That's because we consume and drive more than anyone else in the world, and live in the biggest houses that are the least efficient, the usa could easily cut its output by 50% with almost no real loss in quality of life or whatever we like to call our over-consumption patterns. I suspect ag is mixed in there with transport and industry.

Here's a cool one:
Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center that seems worth a look. You can look at co2 by country too. Here's epa's pie chart by gas type. That's useful because you can see ag vs your car/electricity (57% fossil fuels). here's a per capita chart with pretty colors.

Oh, oh, and here's one I did not remember:

Emissions from cement production (377 million metric tons of carbon in 2007) have more than doubled since the mid 1970s and now represent 4.5% of global CO2 releases from fossil-fuel burning and cement production. global trends cdiac.ornl.gov

Edited by hhope on 03/08/2013 01:25:05 MST.

"If there ever comes an official "end" to the War,"

It'll officially end when Roger and Dean settle their wager. ;0)

"Oh, oh, and here's one I did not remember:"

And another, cattle raising:

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?newsID=20772&CR1=warning

@ Tom, who wrote above: "It'll officially end when Roger and Dean settle their wager."

Curious, Tom, which side do you support? And why?

Edited by ben2world on 03/09/2013 14:33:24 MST.

"Curious, Tom, which side do you support? And why?"

I can't remember, but I think it was probably Dean, because he produces less methane than Roger. ;0)

>I can't remember, but I think it was probably Dean, because he produces less methane than Roger. ;0)


I hear ya. I get yelled at by my wife for producing too much methane.

"I hear ya. I get yelled at by my wife for producing too much methane."

The fate of all married men, I fear. :(

"I hear ya. I get yelled at by my wife for producing too much methane."

The fate of all married men, I fear. :(


Knew there was good reason why I remained blissfully single!

Edited by ben2world on 03/09/2013 23:26:29 MST.

I must say your question could start another carbon flame war, which might be kinda fun. Most charts only show emissions by industry as CO2 equivalent tonnes, which hides how insidious methane in particular is as a warming gas. When you take into account the greater impact of one tonne of methane compared to straight CO2, agriculture is, IMHO, still the biggest contributor that humans have control over.

Feeling a bit self conscious there Ben? ;)