Sunday, June 23, 2013

Sweden's contribution to climate change

Word Cited: http://rowdy.mscd.edu/~kschuene/mtr1600/summer/Keeling.xlsx
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>


6 comments:

  1. Wow, that is amazing! I would have never guessed that Sweden would have a very low output of carbon. I also thought that Sweden would be at least ranked at 20 or higher for the worlds capita carbon dioxide emissions list. This blog was very informative.

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  2. I actually am not so surprised by Sweden having a low output of carbon; from accounts I have read regarding this country, there has traditionally been a societal consciousness of the importance of the environment there. You did a great job with your blog- very informative, and so well organized that it is easy to read at the same time.

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  3. I enjoyed reading your blog and felt that you did a good job making sense of all the data that was represented in the graphs. I was surprised to read that Sweden has reduced their carbon emissions by using forms of renewable energy. That is definitely proof that a significant change can be made over a short period of time and stresses the importance of looking for other forms of energy for the future.

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  4. Great blog. I liked how easy to follow and to the point your post was. You said what you needed to say and didn't add any fluff. My ancestors came from Sweden so it's nice to see how low their CO2 emissions are. Makes me wish that the USA was more like Sweden.

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  5. Good blog. It was well written and was easy to read and understand. It is intresting to find out the co 2 emmsions are on the lower end of the rank.
    good job
    Liliya

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  6. Hi Evan,
    Great job on this post! Not only did your graphs turn out well, but your writing is also great. This assignment asked us to gather quite a bit of data, and you've really done an exceptional job laying it out in a clean, articulate way.

    I chose to look at your blog because I had assumed that Sweden, with it's fantastically progressive politics, would actually be a country quite interested in keeping carbon emissions as low as possible. I was happy to be correct! Sweden will be an interesting country to learn a bit more about as this project progresses. How do they do it? And what can/should America take away from their practices?

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