CO2 Emissions Throughout the World (Personal Edition #9)

This past Friday, in chemistry class, we were able to have the privilege to have a short presentation by Mr. John Murray, Science Consultant from Kindergarten to grade 12 from Manitoba education. Basically what he showed us was this very interesting thought provoking graph that I felt was very important to share.

The graph is of CO₂ emissions throughout the world from 1820-2011. On the x axis it shows average income per person per year and the y axis shows the average amount of tonnes of CO₂ emitted by each person per year. The size of the circles is showing the relative size of the population and they are colour coordinated by their geographical region.

Before Mr. Murray showed us the graph, he talked about where would be the ideal place would be on the graph. The entire class agreed that it was the bottom right hand corner, where income was high and CO₂ emissions are low. However we learned once we saw the graph that this ideal isn't a reality.

What is really cool about this graph, (I think so, at least) is that you can select which countries you want to see, and try the graph again with as many countries as you like. Another interesting aspect of this graph is that you watch the span of 190 years over 30 seconds. This allows you to watch for the significant events in history that were related to CO₂ emissions. For example, there was a significant drop in CO₂ emissions in Canada and the United States from the years 1928-1935 during the great depression. And then throughout the 60's a significant increase in CO₂ emissions as this was the Baby Boom years.

This is an example of a graph:

http://www.gapminder.org/world/#$majorMode=chart$is;shi=t;ly=2003;lb=f;il=t;fs=11;al=21;stl=t;st=t;nsl=t;se=t$wst;tts=C$ts;sp=6;ti=2011$zpv;v=0$inc_x;mmid=XCOORDS;iid=phAwcNAVuyj1jiMAkmq1iMg;by=ind$inc_y;mmid=YCOORDS;iid=phAwcNAVuyj1gkNuUEXOGag;by=ind$inc_s;uniValue=8.21;iid=phAwcNAVuyj1NHPC9MyZ9SQ;by=ind$inc_c;uniValue=255;gid=CATID0;iid=pyj6tScZqmEfbZyl0qjbiRQ;by=grp$map_x;scale=log;dataMin=294;dataMax=76977$map_y;scale=lin;dataMin=-1.2196;dataMax=26$map_s;sma=58;smi=1$cd;bd=0$inds=i37_t001800,,,,;i44_t001899,,,,;i212_t001950,,,,;i76_t001802,,,,;i104_t001927,,,,;i114_t001950,,,,;i239_t001800,,,,;modified=6

In this graph I chose to view the following countries:

•               Canada (yellow)

•               United States (yellow)

•               China (red)

•               France (orange)

•               Kenya (navy blue)

•               Iraq (green)

•               Sri Lanka (teal)

What we noticed on the graph is that there is a pretty direct relationship between income and CO₂ emissions, which makes sense, as the more money we make, the more we buy, which increases CO₂ emissions.

What is really important to learn from this, is what were seeing on these graphs are very much non-sustainable. Mr. Murray explained to us that in 50-75 years,mhumans could notice some serious repercussions from this global warming. It's very important that we start to change our habits and start moving our country to the ideal bottom right hand corner of the graph.

There are very simple, easy ways to do this such as:

•               Drive less or take public transportation

•               Buy your food from local growers

•               Limit your purchases (don't buy useless things)

•               Recycle and Re-use

Find these and more ideas at: http://bravenewclimate.com/2008/08/29/top-10-ways-to-reduce-your-co2-emissions-footprint/

I found this graph very fascinating and really appreciated the presentation that Mr. Murray did for us. Hopefully this can help raise awareness and then eventually leads to change!

Discover the CO₂ emissions throughout the world and more graphs at: http://www.gapminder.org/