Posted on 03/16/2009 5:17:44 PM PDT by markomalley
WHAT is your carbon legacy - not the emissions you are personally liable for, but those of your descendants? Ask Paul Murtaugh, a statistician at Oregon State University in Corvallis. If you have a child, he says, you and you partner are each responsible for half its emissions. If that child has kids, one-quarter of their emissions are down to you, and so on. How it adds up depends on population trends and emission changes in the future. Murtaugh used UN population projections, which say that after 2050, birth rates in all countries will be 1.85 children per woman, on average. Then he took three emissions futures: rising business-as-usual emissions, constant emissions, and "save-the-planet" levels that fall to half a tonne of CO2 per capita per year by 2100. With rising future emissions, each extra child in the US would eventually result in eight times the lifetime carbon footprint of the average US resident today. Even with constant per-capita emissions, it's nearly six times - or nearly 10,000 tonnes of CO2. |
(Excerpt) Read more at newscientist.com ...
Mr. Fierro isn’t obviously gay... so don’t take it too personally.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.