April 30, 2008

Destroying the world – that’s America for you!

by yogesh

The Americans are at it again! No I don’t mean they are fighting yet another useless war. This is what they are second best at. It seems the States using one fourths of the world’s energy. And considering the States consists of only 5% of the world’s population, I guess we have something to worry about here! A class at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) found out that even the most power conscious people in the States use more than twice the energy of the average person around the world. If you are looking for people with the worst carbon footprint, look among the super-rich such as Bill Gates and Oprah Winfrey, MIT says. A new study published by the MIT sheds additional light on this scenario and claims that no matter who it is are, the average American is estimated to contribute at least twice and as much as five times as much greenhouse gas to the atmosphere as those living in the rest of the world. Americans can’t consider themselves as energy-conserving as people living in other countries anytime soon. “Regardless of income, there is a certain floor below which the individual carbon footprint of a person in the U.S. will not drop,” says Timothy Gutowski, professor of mechanical engineering.

This “floor” below which nobody in the U.S. can drop, no matter what their energy choices are, turned out to be 8.5 tons of annual carbon dioxide emissions. That was the usage calculated for a homeless person who ate in soup kitchens and slept in homeless shelters. The average annual carbon dioxide emission per person was found to be 20 metric tons, compared to a world average of four tons. The results of the study are scheduled to be presented on this May 19 at the IEEE International Symposium on Electronics and the Environment in San Francisco. Greenpeace this is the country to wage a war against now! America – this time you are the perpetrators. Muahahaha!
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