Are you guilty or Innocent of contributing to global warming ?

Question

As for me I am guilty. What small thing could I do to change things for all of us now? Is it time to admit that the world is one village?

Answer 1

You can find out just how much you impact the environment by actually putting in your activities such as driving, flying, electricity/gas use, etc into an environmental footprint calculator. There is a good one hosted by Business Objects and Zerofootprint at:

http://insight.businessobjects.com/challenge?extcmp=07q3_insight_ya_0821

You can save your results as well as pledge to make certain changes that will reduce your footprint.

Answer 2

We all contribute in some way, guilt or innocence are not the right words to use. 50% of the CO2 emissions caused by humans comes from 6 billion people breathing. Human activity only contributes about 3% of the total CO2 entering the atmosphere and CO2 only contributes 2.75% to the total greenhouse gas effect. So if humans stopped all fossil fuel use, it would hardly make a measurable difference to global warming.

Answer 3

That depends. What's the punishment?

jk.

We all contribute to global warming. It's a matter of how much. Don't hold your breath just because your CO2 will add to the global warming problem.

What makes you think that you can stop global warming? Yes, we can live a low waste, less polluting, energy sipping life-style, but do we know for sure if that will stop global warming? What if it is a global cycle?

Don't feel guilty. Guilt does not help. Just be responsible and use common sense. Does it help to use less energy? Yes, energy efficiency is good on the wallet as well as on the environment. Does it help to recycle? Yes, for paper, plastics, glass, and metals, because recycling reduces amount of garbage that goes to landfills, and landfills stink and reduce property value around it, and it also helps by not needing to cut down more trees, and less energy and resources to mine and produce more materials. If it makes sense to you, do it, but not because of global warming (which you can't control anyway). Will it be good to drive less? Yes, because you save money on petrol and having to fix the car, and it also contributes less to air pollution from exhaust fumes. By the way, air pollution can directly affect your health in a shorter term, so it should be more of a concern to you than global warming is.

Answer 4

Guilty, trying but could do better. Yes we need to do things collectively, and that does not mean communism, just a united effort like the fight against diseases. Large projects (such as the sequestration of CO2 from burning coal before new technologies which can enable coal to be phased out) have dividends as well as costs. The Victorians in London were not discouraged by large expenditures in putting in the first London sewers. We need a similar spirit.

Answer 5

Probably not as much as the influence of the sun has upon our climate. Or orbital variation, or potential nuclear winter, or Yellowstone going boom!
We are not "one village", get some perspective.
We are on a single planet, orbiting a yellow star, which as time goes on, will become warmer and warmer, until one day, it will expand and burn our little world to a crisp.
Now that'd be some global warming.

Answer 6

I'm not guilty your honor. The sun did it, and I can prove it. I'd like to call my first witness - NASA. A NASA study found a increase in solar irradiance from over a twenty year period using satellite data that was substantial enought that if the trend continued over a century, it would have caused a significant portion of the global warming over the 20th century. As my second witness I would call the astrophysisist who conducted a study of increased total solar irradiance over the 20th century (not just the number of sunspots) and found that increase irradiance accounted statistically for 80% of the warming over that period. I rest my case, your honor.

Answer 7

Don't feel guilty because it's not the end of the world. You are surely alive when you typed out this out. There is no official answer to GW right now. I'm innocent because who knows whats happening to the earth.

Answer 8

How can I be guilty for something that does not exist?

It would be like saying is the Tooth Fairy guilty for people loosing teeth!

Do not confuse doing the right thing with global warming! Recycle and care for the environment, just don't feel that the planets natural cycle is something that you can control.

Answer 9

Before I give my opinion, not_ON_the_CRAK ;) there is many proof that the world is heating up such as in the inconvenient truth they had showed that the polar ice cap is melting causing many animals such as the polar bear to move out. This is so bad because people had found polar bear corpses that had died from drowning.

Well to answer your question, yes I am guilty but I use less electricity. Also that question doesn't make sense every is guilty because if you are viewing or answering this question, you are guilty by using your computer.

Answer 10

I am guilty of being using energy to be more productive which makes this a better world.

The single best small thing that you could do would be to promote nuclear power, which produces zero co2.

Answer 11

The act of "admitting" such a thing doesn't do much, and sounds just too hippie and touchy-feely for many people to accept. Just by living and breathing, people contribute to the CO2 in the atmosphere, so it's not possible for individuals to have no carbon emissions, but there are things you can do to help cut back, and offset the damage.
Get rid of old plain gas-burner cars and at least get a hybrid or bio-diesel. Better would be to get an electric car, better still would be to take public transit, and even better would be to ride a bike.
Don't buy over packaged and over processed food. Buy organic in bulk. Better would be to buy fresh at a farmer's market and cook it yourself. Even better would be to grow some of your own food.
Be thrifty with your clothes, repair them when you can instead of just tossing them out at the first fray. Buy used clothing from stores that sell them, such as Goodwill, the Salvation Army, twice-upon-a-time, etc. Don't use a clothes drier, hang them out in the sunshine when you can, and use them to provide humidity indoors in winter.
Turn off and UNPLUG everything you are not using - the "instant on" feature in TVs and other electronic devices waste a lot of electricity. Those little LED lights to show the thing is plugged in takes juice too. And who needs a CLOCK in an automatic bread-maker, or a refrigerator??
Mow your lawn fewer times in the summer, and at a taller height. Get a battery powered electric lawn mower. electric motors always use less carbon, when you factor in power plant efficiency, than all the small 1 or 2 stroke engines people have around their house, like mowers, trimmers, blowers, chain saws, etc.
Plant fast growing trees on your property, and when mature, sell the lumber or use it yourself, but try not to burn it. Install a solar power panel on your house. Volunteer to help plant trees.
Turn off the air conditioner when you can stand the heat, and in winter, turn down the thermostat and wear a sweater. Don't buy bottled water, ever. City tap water in many places is purer, but if yours isn't, get a water purifier. Don't buy anything in plastic bottles. The plastic in those bottles practically never gets recycled, but costs a lot of carbon to make.
Recycle everything your local collectors will allow.
Compost food waste if you can, along with yard waste - leaves, grass clippings etc, make great mulch and dirt, and then the city doesn't have to burn gas to haul it away and deal with it.
Cook using the microwave oven instead of the stove when you can - it's faster, cheaper and making the electricity provides less carbon than using the stove.