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The average car emits 5.5 tons of CO2 annually and is "responsible" for a temperature rise of 0.00000000000311º C, three one-hundred-billionths of a degree. Utterly irrelevant. But... but... what if everybody did the same? It would still be imperceptible.

I’ve seen this average car producing 5.5 tons of CO₂ per year figure tossed around for years from the Climate alarmists but never really seen it challenged. I’m going to.

The average American drives ~250 miles per week times 52 weeks per year for a total of 13,000 miles per year. Males drive a bit more and females a bit less. . . but that’s close. In 2018, the national fleet average was about 25 miles per gallon of fuel. Therefore, the average driver in the average car in America used 520 gallons of fuel per year. Gasoline weighs 6.183 pounds per gallon (for our purposes we shall ignore diesel fueled vehicles which use 6.8 lbs per gallon fuel). The total weight of the gasoline consumed, if it reaches 100% cumbustion, is ~3,215 pounds, or ~1.6 tons.

If we were to assume that 100% of that gasoline weight was made of Carbon atoms (atomic mass ~12) which then combined with two Oxygen atoms (atomic mass ~16 each), then you get the approximate 5.5 tons of CO₂ per year. . . However, ~20% of that gasoline weight is made up of Hydrogen which burns to H₂O, water, as exhaust, not CO₂. That brings the 5.5 tons down to 4.4 tons of CO₂, but we’re used to the alarmist fudging their figures, aren’t we? I guess they figure it’s close enough for government work.

II'm impressed by your careful arithmetic. But as you noted, we (I mean my ignorant self, and the must better-educated people I am quoting or alluding to) are using IPCC figures. So it's the best-case scenario for them.and they cannot (or dare not) dispute their own figures.

Fascinating, though. Thanks very much.