Almost 6,000,000,000 TONS of CO2 emissions worldwide this year.

[panader0]

I saw this stat on www.worldometer.info -a site I found from a fellow DUer. That particular stat shocked me. Cool site if you can take the stuff they tell you.

[PamW]

1. Yes - we burn billions of tons of fossil fuels.

Almost 6,000,000,000 TONS of CO2 emissions worldwide this year
========================================================

Yes - the world burns billions of tons of fossil fuels every year.

A lot of that is coal. Coal is essentially carbon, and the oxidation
of carbon reaction is:

C + O2 --> CO2

The atomic weight of C is 12. The atomic weight of O is 16.
So CO2 has an atomic weight of 44.
So for every 12 tons of carbon you burn, you get 44 tons of CO2.

Because a few parts in a million of coal are the radioactive species
of uranium and thorium, since we burn billions of tons of coal, we
get thousands of tons of radioactive uranium and thorium put into the
atmosphere for us to breathe.

The radioactivity is more diluted when it is spewed by coal plants, but
the overall amount of actinides like uranium and thorium put into the
environment by coal combustion dwarfs what Fukushima is doing:

http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev26-34/text/colmain.html

PamW

[RKP5637]

2. It's frightening and devastating, yet we plod on, and many industrialists love it

as is. Amazing. Often, very often, I just wonder WTF in amazement. Profit at any cost to the future of humanity and all living species.

[txlibdem]

3. You've detailed the exact reason why Capitalism is unsustainable and non-survivable

At its core, Capitalism has no value system other than profit. Unconstrained Capitalism will kill itself and everyone else in short order.

We need a different way of thinking about who owns the resources of this planet and how to make best use of them.

[txlibdem]

4. Thank you for posting!

CO2 emissions is/are the greatest threat facing mankind today. No question about it.

The days of coal and oil need to end - ASAP.