When I was sitting in the dark waiting for my car warming up last night, my roaming mind suddenly hit a bump. How much carbon dioxide(CO₂) and pollutants did my dearest car emit to the air?

I am not an environmentalist but I do concern about the global warming. In fact, I was once trained in studying environment and health. So when I was skimming through the Nature, a report caught my attention. It says that if we keep on giving off CO₂, the global temperature will raise 2-11⁰C—greater than what we originally thought (2-3⁰C). Incidentally, this week’s Time magazine had an excerpt from the former EPA director Christine Todd Whitman’s book “It’s My Party, too”. In that excerpt, Whitman complained that Mr. President basically tipped her off on the issue of global warming.

Well, politics and science are interesting by themselves, but let’s take global warming personally. Let me introduce my car first. She is sort of an old American beauty and drinks lots of gasoline (and also needs enormous love :-)). It only runs 22 miles per gallon gas but is powerful (V6, 3.1). It never fails me during the winter and always roars through snow piles with one kick. However, after I fumbled through the US EPA website, I was shocked that my precious darling is actually a witch. It has a score of 1 (the worst) in terms of air pollutant emissions. I was somewhat relieved when I found that its score on carbon dioxide (CO₂) is rated as 5 (the average).

As a number cruncher, I figured out that by driving half an hour per day, or 20 miles in the city, my car emits about 5,902 lbs of CO₂per year, less than half of the national average (13,500 lbs). I kept on playing with numbers. The final number for the total emissions by my family came out as a merely 37,100 lbs. Again it is about half of the national average (60,000 for two people). Hmm, not too bad. You can try it by yourself.
(http://yosemite.epa.gov/oar/globalwarming.nsf/content/ResourceCenterToolsGHGCalculator.html)

On the EPA website, there are more numbers. The residential emissions account for about 5.5% of total CO₂ emissions. One third of CO₂ emissions are from energy production, and 27% are from cars and trucks on the road. Overall, the US accounts for 24% of CO₂ emissions of the world (with only 5% population of the world). To make things worse, the US CO₂ emission is increasing at 1% per year from 1999-2002, or about 3.5% increase per year for each person. Among them, the emissions from transportation have the fastest increase. The residential emissions remain stable.

On the other hand, based on the Kyoto Protocol, remaining stable is not enough. We should reduce the emission. EPA suggests that by adjusting the electricity we use in our home, the waste we produce, and the personal transportation, we can reduce 32% of the total emissions per person. Since my guilty is only half of that of average Americans, I don’t know how much improvement I can do. Nevertheless, if there is a will, there is a way.

The first thing coming up to my mind is that I can low the room temperature by one or two degrees. Gosh, the Weather channel predicted that temperature tonight will be about -5⁰F. Looking at my son who wears shorts all the time, I decided to hold my horses till the overall temperature was above 0⁰F. However, before I left home this morning, I did carefully adjust my temperature two degrees more down than usual. I felt good the whole morning.

The second thing is to deal with my electricity. Well, I looked around. I can turn off my computer whenever possible. No TV anytime (which is good). I can also replace unessential light bulbs to lower lumen ones, for example along the stairway. Other utilities? I certainly can’t turn off my refrigerator. All other machines are used only occasionally. Then I remembered that my wife has been yearning for a dishwasher for a long time. I should talk to her right away about giving up that idea. But hold on, I may use other ways to make that buying impossible.

Something about waste has to be done. However, I always recycle my paper and bottles, and have much less trash than our neighbors do. I guess the only thing I can do to reduce waste is to keep all the trash in house.

Till now, all my decisions can save my money although it may not be much. Well, there are two more major things that I can do about. The first is my old car. I have thought of replacing it for a long time. She is still serving me partly because she is doing just fine now and partly because I have had some sort of love-hate feelings for her. Well, I do like you, Dory, but I have to let you go. I am sorry. I quickly estimated that it might cost me more than $20,000 to buy an average new car. This is a big budget.

What about the house itself? I learned that one of my colleagues was installing new insulation onto her house. Well, I also heard that it costs a lot. I don’t know exactly how much but the number can be as much as $10,000. By doing this, I may save some money too from gas bills, but I guess the saving will be far less than $10,000. Anyway, this is a hard decision to make. No rush. I have to let it go too.

After some further musing and pondering, I finally came up a conclusion. The global warming is important, but to make a significant contribution, the costs may be a lot more than the benefits. Because I can’t perceive any immediate benefits, my motivation is also low. Furthermore, there is no punishment if I keep on wasting energy (except for extra $1-2 per months, which are minimal compared with other expenses).

The United States must see the global warming the same way as I do. There is no benefit to reduce CO₂ emissions. In addition, CO₂ is not an air pollutant based on Clear Air Act. Anyway, there are many more important things to do. So the President just plainly rejected the Kyoto Protocol. There is no punishment.

A note: China accounts for about 12.7% world CO₂ emissions, with a 1.3 billion population.