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In 2007, China passed the US as the country that emits the most greenhouse gases. But if one follows where most of China's products go, the blame clearly shifts to other places. China's per capita consumption-based footprint is small, as the export a lot of their products to other countries. A team of researchers looked at 43 countries and 5 regions from a consumption standpoint, and found that consumers are responsible for more than 60 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions and 80 percent of the world's water use. It was seen that consumers are directly responsible for 20 percent of all carbon emissions, which results from driving cars and heating hoes. What was surprising, though, was that consumers are indirectly responsible for four-fifths of all carbon impacts through the simple purchase of products and the resources that were needed to produce those goods. A good example is water use. While it may be thought that shortening shower length can help to reduce water use, what would really help would be to cut down meat consumption. Cows are terrible inefficient at converting grains into meat, and so one kilo of meat of beef requires 15,415 liters of water to be produced. Researchers also looked at the difference in water use when producing soy milk and cow's milk: a liter soy milk needs only 267 liters of water (with only about 62 percent of that water actually growing the soybeans) while a liter cow milk needs about 1050 liters of water. Processed foods also need lots of resources, as it takes lots of water to grow the raw materials, lots of oil to ship the materials, and lots of energy to produce and package the final product. (By the way, it takes 17,000 liters of water to produce one kilo of chocolate). When the researchers looked at countries, they found that the richer a country is, the more its inhabitants consume. The more a person consumes, the bigger that person's impact is on the environment. The US is the worst country with 18.6 tons of CO2 equivalent per capita. I find this issue of particular importance because it highlights the fact that change in environmental thinking really needs to start at the individual level. Personal choices to become vegan or vegetarian can cut water use by much more than simply taking shorter showers. Also, just cutting back on buying products can help to reduce an individual's impact on the environment. People should spend more on services instead, as this has the benefit of not only reducing a person's carbon footprint but expanding a person's experiential knowledge. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/02/160224132923.htm
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April 2016
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