spud, from the Times article I was excerpting above:
The average American is responsible for 19.4 tons. Average emissions per person in Russia are 11.8 tons; in the European Union, 8.6 tons; China, 5.1 tons; and India, 1.8 tons. . . . [Earlier] In 2007 China’s emissions were 14 percent higher than those of the United States.

You engineers might smirk, but I like simple "story problems" ;) to recast the numbers . . . :
1
Chinese population / U.S. pop. = 1,322 million (2007 est.) / 301 mil = 4.39
Chinese per cap emissions (tons) / U.S. = 5.1 /19.4 = 0.2629
Pop. ratio X per cap emissions ratio = 4.39 X 0.2629
= 1.15, or close to "14 percent higher" in article

2
(Chinese pop. X per cap emissions) / (U.S. pop. X per cap)
= (1,322 mil X 5.1 tons)/(301 mil X 19.4 tons)
= 6,742.2 million tons / 6,014.0 mil tons
= 1.12, or close to the "14 percent higher" of the article.Even at 1.5 times as heavy as air, it's hard to fathom that each American is "responsible" for 106 pounds per day. I don't disbelieve it--it's just astounding. I totally understand that this is the average of all industrial processes, construction, transportation that occurs--still just astounding!

[Future side research project: How much CO2 per day does the average adult produce simply from respiration? Is it even 1 pound?]

But 106 pounds a day. Really, somebody's wasting a lot of fossil fuels, building stuff, etc. in a way that I would not approve and would never make use of. :donut: [Yahoo email smiley with halo not available for linking anymore.] This is not counting distant roadways, schools, and such for the common good. Speaking of cooking with concrete, not sure that all dams (China's, infamously) are really for the common good. Air Force One and presidential candidates criss-crossing the country every week or every day--take a train, you wasteful egomaniacs! :mad:

http://www.abelincoln.com/springfield/images/2-48sm.jpg

"Lincoln leaves for Washington, D.C., from Springfield, Illinois" (larger version)

Every gallon of gasoline burned produces about 20 pounds of CO2.
From here.

CO2 from electricity production varies based on the fuel source. For wind, solar, and even biomass, the CO2 is essentially zero, once the equipment is operating (though there is CO2 generated in the manufacture and installation of the equipment).

Electricity produced from natural gas creates less CO2 than electricity produced from coal (because coal has more carbon per unit of energy).

According to Wikipedia:

So, for every kWh of electricity used, between 1.3 and 2.1 pound of CO2 is produced, unless the electricity is from renewable sources.

For a typical household use of 29 kWh/day, this results in production of 38 to 61 lb of CO2 per household per day.

Natural gas or oil used for space heating also produces CO2.

There are, of course, a lot of other sources of CO2, but this helps put the 106 lb/person per day into perspective.

Here is a chart showing sources of CO2 production in the US in 2005. From here.

http://epa.gov/climatechange/emissions/images/ES05.gif

Algae?

[quote=HungLikeJesus;463720]Every gallon of gasoline burned produces about 20 pounds of CO2.
From here.

Explain how you create 20lbs of CO2 from 6.5 lbs of gasoline?

Having read all the above, and thank you Imigo for doing the math, it's obvious that humankind is producing vast amounts of CO2. A lot of that is wasteful uses, such as politicians and celebrities using private jets to criss cross the world for selfish purposes. Having said that, has anyone ever measured how much CO2(not to mention other poisonous gasses) is produced by one average volcano? I would guess one volcano per year would trump all of mankind's production per year. Of course, there are usually more than one volcano per year spewing pollution into the air, sometimes much higher amounts than the average. Am I right?

Burning gasoline is a combustion reaction. It takes oxygen molecules from the air.

Sorry, but no. That's a myth that has been circulating for a while. The CO2 emissions from volcanoes is a drop in the bucket compared with the emissions from human activities.

Here's a good article on the topic, found on the US Geological Survey's web page.
Edit: And just to have the numbers posted, volcanoes produce approximately 200 million tonnes of CO2 per year, while mankind produces about 26.8 billion tonnes (in 2003.) Even the largest eruption in recent times, Pinatubo in the Philippines, produced between 42 and 234 million tons of CO2. (1, 2) so even that year, volcanoes didn't come anywhere near producing the CO2 that mankind did.

Yes.

In addition to the binding of oxygen, mentioned in the original link, the per-capita CO2 production from that gallon of gas adds the production and transportation of that gallon of gas. So 20lb is the lower limit.

Heck, even if the myth were true, it would hardly be a worthy argument. Volcanos' contributions aren't increasing exponentially like mankind's are.

OK

Chinese algae in "NY Times"
 

This morning's online Times has an article on Chinese algae. Excerpts follow, then a link to the entire article:

To Save Olympic Sailing Races, China Fights Algae

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/...1algae.600.jpg

A barge at Qingdao, site of the Olympic sailing regatta in August, was surrounded by algae last week. The Chinese have begun a huge cleanup effort. (EyePress, via Associated Press)

By JIM YARDLEY
Published: July 1, 2008

BEIJING — With less than six weeks before it plays host to the Olympic sailing regatta, the city of Qingdao, China, has mobilized thousands of people and an armada of small boats to clean up an algal bloom choking the coastline and threatening to impede the competition.

Local officials have begun an intense effort to clean up the algae by mid-July. News reports estimate as many as 20,000 people have either volunteered or been ordered to participate in the operation [I'm guessing been ordered], while 1,000 boats are scooping algae out of the Yellow Sea. . . .

Algae blooms now affect more than 5,000 square miles of seawater, Xinhua reported.

“We will make all our efforts to finish this job,” said a propaganda official in Qingdao, who asked not to be named because of the political delicacy of the issue [also because Beijing is cracking down on propaganda officials who misspeak, terminating them--with a bullet to the back of the head after a show trial]. “Now, forces from the entire province have become involved.” He said ships and boats have been dispatched from two other coastal cities, Rizhao and Yantai, to help haul away the algae.

Yuan Zhiping, an official with the Qingdao Olympic Sailing Committee, said Sunday that the government would try to block algae from floating into the Olympic sailing area by installing in the sea a fenced perimeter more than 30 miles long. [See "Bigger Europe" thread.] . . .

The massive outbreak comes with some sailing teams already in Qingdao preparing for the Olympics. Photographs in the Australian news media showed an Australian team seemingly stuck in a carpet of algae during a training run. [Or so it seemed, relative to an American team training nearby. :f109: Whoops :f207: U.S.A.! U.S.A.! :f207: :p :f9:] . . .

Air quality remains a serious concern in Beijing. On Tuesday the city will begin removing 300,000 high-polluting vehicles, mostly trucks, from local roads. Later in July the city will institute temporary restrictions to remove half of all motor vehicles from the streets.

But air quality remains such a large problem that officials are also preparing contingency plans that could force factories across much of northern China to close temporarily if conditions warrant. [Great. First gas prices, then food prices. Now Wally World prices.]

Full article

hahaha

Would they prevent the phosphate pollution that is enabling the algae bloom?? NoooOOOOooo. Instead they just run out and pick up all the algae..

It's an unnatural resource.

Olympic algae update
 

China Says Algae Cleared for Sailing

By EDWARD WONG
Published: July 16, 2008

BEIJING — Olympic athletes competing in waters off the east coast of China can literally expect smooth sailing in August, a Chinese official said Tuesday.

The official, Lin Hong, said from the coastal city of Qingdao that efforts to clean up large amounts of green algae had been successful. Barriers have been erected to keep the algae from infiltrating waters where Olympic sailing events will be held, said Ms. Lin, spokeswoman for the Qingdao Emergency Center on Algae Disposal.

Photos posted on sohu.com, a popular Chinese Web portal, showed waters supposedly around Qingdao devoid of algae. . . .

Ms. Lin said that by Sunday, there was no trace of algae in the waters designated for Olympic events. By 3:30 p.m. Monday, she said, volunteers and workers had cleared a total of 419,000 tons of algae from the water and 333,000 tons from the seashore.
It was unclear what caused the algae to bloom around Qingdao.

Full article

http://www.21food.com/userImages/lvy...od$5171759.jpg

Dumplings boiled in algae juice

"Helix algae juice boiled dumplings.Spirulina contains protein and amino acid 65%, 20% carbohydrate, lipid 5%, 7% and 3%, mineral water, In the area of nutrition than any other animals, plants, grains and other foods are more comprehensive, effective, FAO recommended in the 21st Century 'in the best food.' WHO describes as a '21st century the best of health products' "