Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Table 6.
Emissions for different activities by U.S. households, 2008. What
household activities produce the most CO
2
emissions? Driving is the single
biggest source. Most of emissions (“everything else”) are not from direct fuel
use but rather from indirect uses or “embodied” CO
2
where the carbon
dioxide has been emitted to make the goods and services used by households.
CO
2
emissions
per household
(tons, 2008)
Percentage of
emissions
End use
Automotive travel
7.9
15.2
Space heating
3.2
6.2
Air travel
1.6
3.0
Air conditioning
1.3
2.5
Water heating
1.3
2.5
Lighting
1.1
2.2
Refrigeration
0.8
1.5
Electronics
0.8
1.5
Cleaning
0.5
1.0
Computers
0.1
0.2
Everything else
(including nonhousehold)
33.4
64.3
Total
51.9
100.0
TECHNOLOGIES FOR REDUCING CO
2
Suppose we decide to reduce CO
2
emissions and concentrations. How
would we do this? Here are the main approaches:
• We can slow the overall growth of the economy. For example,
during the 2009 recession U.S. emissions declined by 7 percent.
Causing recessions is a painful way to accomplish the task and is
defi nitely not recommended.
• We can reduce our energy consumption. Energy services are the
useful activities listed in Table 6, such as driving or heating our
homes. This route is a possible approach. We can surely trim some
fat here. But most people resist major lifestyle changes, and we
