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| Word Cited: http://rowdy.mscd.edu/~kschuene/mtr1600/summer/Keeling.xlsx |
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| Work Cited: http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/emis/swe.html |
I am glad to note that my country of Sweden has a very low output of carbon into the earth's atmosphere. It was virtually untracked until the beginning of the 20th century alongside the Industrial Revolution. However low the carbon emissions of Sweden are, the country did see a large spike in the 1950's mostly due to the rise in automobile for transit.
Sweden ranks 73rd on the worlds per capita CO2 emissions list with 1.45 metric tons of carbon when compared to the United States is only .2959% of our emissions. Here in the US we rank 12th in the world in metric tons of carbon per capita at 4.9 metric tons. I feel Sweden has done a fantastic job in keeping their carbon output to a minimum. In 1975 oil accounted for 75% of Sweden's energy, but by the year 2010 oil only amassed 32% of the countries total energy consumption while renewable energies accounted for 45%.
Compared to the five other countries on graph #2 Sweden has the second lowest emissions beside Kenya. This is most likely due to Kenya being a third world nation with little automobile use and no need of heating homes by use of natural gas. China seems to be the biggest problem as their emissions is spiking along the y-axis. Sadly I feel India will be right behind them in the coming years.
Although China seems to be emitting the most carbon they are actually better per capita then The United States. China has over a billion people more than the US and are only slightly emitting more CO2. China is also a communist country so citizens have little to no say on the concept of air quality.
Here is a list of the countries from the fossil fuel emissions chart ranked in order of total cumulative emissions (in metric tons):
1. The United States: 91,229,888
2. China: 31,793,558
3. India: 9,151,461
4. Italy: 5,364,817
5: Sweden: 1,160,322
6: Kenya 80,124
When we take these statistics into account we can see that China actually emits much less carbon then the US, nearly 35% less actually. India is also much less when you take into account their population as well with each Indian emitting 10% as much carbon as the average American. These numbers seems astronomical as an American. I feel we are ahead of the game with education on the subject of global warming, but it looks like we dug ourselves a pretty big hole to get out of.
Resources Provided By:
http://www.sweden.se/eng/Home/Society/Sustainability/Facts/Energy/
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/emis/top2008.cap
http://rowdy.mscd.edu/~kschuene/mtr1600/summer/Keeling.xlsx
http://www.skepticalscience.com/CO2-emissions-correlation-with-CO2-concentration.htm>
