How To Reduce CO2 Emissions Now

SEARCH BLOG: CO2 and TRAFFIC SIGNALS

I've had forum discussions as well as private email exchanges with those who are concerned about CO2 increases in the atmosphere.

Some, but not all, are understanding of the situation enough to admit that the relationship of CO2 to climate change is complex because there are so many other potential factors... and the fact that CO2 increases have, historically, followed temperature increases... not vice versa. And then there is the matter of CO2 concentrations being much higher... as much as 16 times higher... in the past while earth was in cooling phases.

Be that as it may, most of the arguments to reduce CO2 fall into the "risk management" area. We can't afford to not reduce CO2 levels on the chance that it is the primary forcing factor in this climate change.

Fine. If you believe that reducing CO2 production immediately is critical, what should we do... now!

Well, here are some lifestyle changes that we could make:

• Shut off unused rooms and close the heating vents in those rooms ... we do that now!
• Replace standard light bulbs with spiral florescent bulbs ... we do that now!
• Turn water heater temperature to a lower setting ... we do that now!
• Turn winter heat setting to 67 degrees ... we do that now!

These are simple conservation efforts that we can implement with little effort or expense.

The next level of action becomes a little harder.

Replacing power plants that produce CO2

• Use nuclear power instead? Well, that's something we can't do now! But conventional power plants are where the greatest CO2 production occurs.
• Wind power? You all read about those rich, Democrat, environmentalists in Cape Cod who squelched that idea... would spoil the ocean view, you know.
  

Replace all vehicles with fuel-efficient vehicles:

• Number of vehicles on the road: over 230 million
• Median age of all vehicles: almost 9 years

That means it would take about 18 years to remove nearly all of the inefficient vehicles... if we stopped buying them now! Of course, much of the reduction would be offset by population and vehicle increases, but the rate of increase of CO2 production would be decreased gradually.

Replace all home heating and cooling systems with geothermal units.

Who will mandate that one? And they do need electricity from power plants to operate.

So, do we ignore the homeowner/consumer produced CO2, beyond turning down the heat and changing some light bulbs, and place all of the burden on businesses? Since so few of us own or work in businesses, that would work (feel the sarcasm here).

Here is something we can do now!

Contact your Department of Transportation and demand that their traffic engineers synchronize traffic signal progression! Have you ever read the city/highway EPA stickers on new vehicles ... something like 21 mpg city/29 mpg highway. That's because all of those extra hours you give up each week due to poorly timed signals also increases your cost of driving and CO2 production from unnecessary idling and acceleration. This can be corrected now!

If you want to make a big difference now, start raising the roof with your state, county and local Departments of Transportation and Traffic Engineering Departments. Poorly timed traffic lights are the single biggest, unnecesary producer of CO2 in the U.S.

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