There are now 14 million unemployed Americans. Since 2007, unemployment has risen from 4.6% to 9.8%. This year, American companies have created 2.4 million jobs, of which 1.4 million went to workers overseas. If those 1.4 million jobs were given to Americans, there would only be 12.6 million unemployed which would lower the unemployment rate from 9.8% to 8.8%. All but 4% of the top 500 U.S. corporations have recorded profits this year even as the unemployment rate continues to climb.

According to the CIA’s World Factbook, of 136 countries analyzed, the USA ranks 97th when it comes to income equality – on par with countries like Rwanda, Philippines, Uganda, Jamaica, Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoir, Iran and Malaysia. No other modern western countries rank higher than 66th. The poorest half of Americans own only 2.5% of the country’s wealth. The richest 1% of Americans own 34%. And the richest 10% own more than 70% of the county’s wealth. This means that the richest 1% own more wealth than all of the middle class and poor combined.

About 15% of Americans, nearly 46 million, are now classified as poor. Poor Americans are defined by a family of four making less than $22,350 per year. A Big Mac today costs about $3.67 with tax. For a family of four to eat nothing but Big Macs for three meals a day would cost about $16,000 in a year leaving just over $6,000, about $16 per day, $4 per family member, to cover rent, transportation, health care and other costs.

In the late 1800s, 75% of American workers were employed in agriculture. Today that number is less than 3% as technology and automation have made human farmers less valuable. From 2001 to 2010, nearly 5 million manufacturing jobs were lost to automation even as the value of manufactured goods rose 27%. Moreover, automated self-service machines replaced 1.1 million retail workers between 2008 and 2011. At this rate at least another 8.3 million manufacturing and retail workers will lose their jobs to machines between now and 2020.

The 12 million illegal immigrants in America are often blamed for unemployment rates as they will often take physical labor jobs for less money than average Americans. However, though illegal immigrants make up only 3.75% of the U.S. population, they constitute 5% of the country’s economy and therefore create more jobs than they take. In fact, Harvard’s George Borjas estimates that illegal immigrants have a net increase of 1% on the average American’s wealth.

*     *     *
In 2010, America spent $729 billion on defense. That comes to $2,367 per American. By comparison, China spent $78 billion on defense. That comes to $60 per Chinese.


Sources:

Hayes, Brian. Automation on the Job. American Scientist. January-February, 2009.
http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/pub/automation-on-the-job/4

Ford, Martin. Job Automation: Is a Future Unemployment Crisis Looming? Huffington Post. March 7, 2011.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/martin-ford/job-automation-is-a-futur_b_832146.html

Semuels, Alana. Retail Jobs are Disappearing as Shoppers Adjust to Self-Service. L.A. Times. March 4, 2011.
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/mar/04/business/la-fi-robot-retail-20110304

Davidson, Adam. Q&A: Illegal Immigrants and the U.S. Economy. NPR. March 30. 2006.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5312900

Dalia, Fahmy. Expensive Aliens: How Much Do Illegal Immigrants Really Cost? ABC News. May 21, 2010.
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/illegal-immigrants-cost-us-100-billion-year-group/story?id=10699317

Gogoi, Pallavi. Job Market Booming Overseas For Many American Companies. Huffington Post. December 28, 2010.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/28/job-market-booming-overseas_n_801839.html

A Decade of Unemployment. Visual Economics. September, 2011.
http://www.visualeconomics.com/a-decade-of-unemployment/

List of Countries by Income Equality. Wikipedia. September, 2011.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_equality

Distribution of Family Income. CIA Factbook. September, 2011.
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2172rank.html

Poverty. National Poverty Center. September, 2011.
http://www.npc.umich.edu/poverty/

If the energy needs of the average human on the planet came from 100% nuclear power, each human life would produce enough nuclear waste to fill a soda can, about 330 milliliters. If the energy needs of the average human on the planet came from 100% coal, each human life would consume about 68 tons, thus producing 77 tons of CO2. Producing 1 gigawatt of electricity with ethanol requires over 2500 square kilometers. Producing the same amount with wind requires about 770 square kilometers while nuclear requires about 250 square kilometers.

*     *     *
Since the construction of the first civilian nuclear plant in 1954, there have been 3 major nuclear disasters. Officially, the Chernobyl accident directly resulted in the deaths of 53 people from the meltdown in 1986. The Tokaimura and Mahima accidents in Japan killed 6 in 1999 and 2004. The SL-1 accident in Idaho Falls resulted in the death of 3 in 1961. The Three Mile Island accident resulted in 0 known deaths. And though 21 employees at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant have been exposed to seriously high levels of radiation, no one has died so far. That means that in 56 years since the opening the first civilian nuclear plant, officially 62 people have died as a result of nuclear accidents. That is a global average of just over 1 fatality per year. In China alone, an estimated 8,000 die in coal mining accidents each year.

Thousands of people still suffer sickness and cancer from the Chernobyl accident and some unofficial studies suggest that as many as 1 million deaths might be attributed to the accident. The American Lung Association estimates that particle pollution from coal-fired power plants is responsible for 13,000 deaths each year in the U.S. alone. Internationally, deaths are estimated to number more than 1 million per year, about 1 fatality every 30 seconds.

In Europe, it is estimated that about 25 people die from pollution for every terawatt hour of electricity produced from coal, whereas .05 people die from pollution for every terawatt hour of electricity produced from nuclear. Moreover, coal produces 1,290 grams of CO2 per kilowatt hour while nuclear produces 30 grams.

Since the Fukushima disaster, the highest level of radiation seen in Tokyo so far has been 0.109 microsieverts per hour, about 3 times Tokyo’s normal level. The U.K. Health Protection Agency estimates that the typical Briton receives about 0.251 microsieverts per hour from natural background radiation. Chennai in Southern India has the highest recorded average of natural background radiation level at 3.42 microsieverts per hour, about 34 times that of Tokyo’s highest level since the disastrous earthquake and tsunami that likely killed over 23,000 and displaced 400,000.

*     *     *
The U.S. and China account for 40% of the world’s total CO2 emissions and 40% of the world’s total energy consumption. Moreover, the two countries combine for 50% of global coal use. Nearly 50% of energy produced in the U.S. is from coal burning while China’s energy comes from 75% coal. About 20% of U.S. electricity generation comes from nuclear power plants.


Sources:

Brand, Stewart. Whole Earth Discipline. Viking Adult Publishing. October, 2009.

Toxic Air: Time to Clean Up Coal-Fired Power Plants. American Lung Association. April, 2011.
http://www.lungusa.org/about-us/our-impact/top-stories/toxic-air-coal-fired-power-plants.html

Friendman, Julio. Green China Rising. The Atlantic Monthly. March 31, 2011.
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/03/green-china-rising/73263/

Brown, David. Nuclear Power is Safest Way to Make Electricity, According to 2007 Study. Washington Post. April 2, 2011.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/nuclear-power-is-safest-way-to-make-electricity-according-to-2007-study/2011/03/22/AFQUbyQC_story.html

Torres, Katherine. Breathing Easy: Respiratory Protection in Coal Mines. EHS Today. March, 2006.
http://ehstoday.com/ar/ehs_imp_38114/

Nuclear and Radiation Accidents. Wikipedia. April, 2011.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_and_radiation_accidents

Biggs, Stuart. Radiation from Cornwall to Hong Kong Beats Tokyo Amid Nuclear Plant Scare. Bloomberg. April 1, 2007.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-01/hong-kong-radiation-exceeds-tokyo-even-after-japan-crisis.html

Caldicott, Helen. How Nuclear Apologists Misled the World Over Radiation. The Guardian. April 11, 2011.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/apr/11/nuclear-apologists-radiation

There are 1,462 documented species of edible insects on the planet. Nearly 80% of humans prepare insects as food. It is estimated that Europeans and North Americans unknowingly eat an average of 500 grams of insect residue per year in processed foods. Chocolate may have as much as 600 insect parts per kilogram and fruit juice may have as much as 20 fruit fly eggs and 6 larvae in every liter.

*     *     *
The US cattle industry is responsible for consuming 13,000 liters of water for every kilogram of beef produced. In addition, the livestock industry presently uses 70% of the world’s agricultural land. With meat consumption expected to double between 2000 and 2050, it will require additional agricultural land more than the total area of China to meet the demand.

On average, 10 kilograms of feed is required to raise 1 kilogram of beef. The equivalent amount of feed can raise 6 kilograms of insect meat. Being that 12.9 million square kilometers of the world’s land is used for livestock, switching to insects could theoretically recover over 10 million square kilometers. Nearly 600 thousand square kilometers of Brazil’s rainforests have been destroyed since 1970, mostly to grow feed for livestock.

Whereas ground beef contains about 18% protein, cooked grasshopper is nearly 60% protein. According to UN reports, 100 grams of insects can provide more than 100% of recommended vitamins and minerals. Moreover, ground beef is 18% fat with the grasshopper only 6% fat – unsaturated fat to boot.

The recommended daily amount of protein is between 40 and 70 grams per day depending upon age, gender and body type. A 150-gram beef burger patty contains about 27 grams of protein. That means that one would need to eat 2 burgers a day to get enough protein from beef alone. These burgers would also add 54 grams of fat per day to one’s diet. It would require eating only 90 grams of grasshoppers to get the same amount of protein with only 5.4 grams of fat.

While cattle rearing is responsible for 37% of all human-induced methane emissions, a greenhouse gas that traps 23 times as much heat as carbon dioxide, raising the same amount of edible weight in insects would emit only 1.3% that of cattle.

*     *     *
To make 1 kilogram of honey takes nearly 16,000 worker-bee hours. Over 33% of the US American diet is tied to the pollination of plants by bees. Their pollination contributes nearly $15 billion to the US economy each year. In 2006, nearly 50% of the US commercial bee colonies died from the mysterious colony collapse disorder (CCD).

Roughly 80% of the world’s almonds come from California and almonds rank as the leading horticultural export from the US. Since the appearance of CCD, importing bees now accounts for 20% of the production cost of almonds.


Sources:

The Case For Easting Insects. CNN Eatocracy. July 2010.
http://eatocracy.cnn.com/2010/07/15/the-case-for-eating-insects/

Kruse, Maria. Edible Insects, Important Source of Protein in Central Africa. FAO Newsroom. November, 2004.
http://www.fao.org/newsroom/en/news/2004/51409/index.html

Price, Alethia. Eating Bugs! Manataka American Indian Council.
http://www.manataka.org/page160.html

Guynup, Sharon and Nicolas Ruggia. For Most People, Eating Bugs Is Only Natural. National Geographic. July, 2004.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/07/0715_040715_tvinsectfood.html

Researchers Recommend Insect Meat. Hc2d.co.uk. January, 2011.
http://www.hc2d.co.uk/content.php?contentId=17352

Benson, Jonathan. Dutch Scientists Push for Bugs to Replace Meat as Food Source. Natural News. January, 2011.
http://www.naturalnews.com/031111_insects_food.html

Sekularac, Ivana. Save The Planet: Swap Your Steak for Bugs and Worms. Reuters. January, 2011.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/01/18/us-food-insects-idUSTRE70H1TT20110118

Kolb, Benjamin. Eating Insects ‘Could Cut Greenhouse Gas Emissions’. Your Olive Branch.Org. January, 2011.
http://news.yourolivebranch.org/2011/01/19/eating-insects-could-cut-greenhouse-gas-emissions/

Fruit and Nut Case. BBC Nature Inc. 2009.
www.natureinc.org

Holland, Jennifer S.  Colonies in Crisis.  National Geographic.  October, 2007.  Pg. 31.

The amount of land used for agriculture worldwide is nearly 18 million square kilometers, an area equal to the size of South America. With a world population of nearly 6.9 billion, each human on the planet is responsible for consuming the average agricultural area of about 2,600 square meters (nearly 2/3rds of an acre). It is estimated that the world’s population will reach 9.5 billion by 2050. To feed everyone on the planet will require an additional 6.8 million square kilometers of agricultural land, an area nearly equal to the size of Brazil.

Vertical Farming is a concept designed by Dickson Despommier that argues for a conversion to large-scale urban farming by claiming that one 30-story structure with an area the size of a typical city block could produce as much food as 9.7 square kilometers of typical outdoor farmland.

The US harvests from 1.2 million square kilometers of agricultural land each year. That is roughly 3,800 square meters (about 1 acre) per US American. The average American meal travels over 2,400 kilometers from farm to plate. The distance food travels is responsible for the spoilage of nearly 30% of American produce.

About 82% of Americans live in urban areas. It is estimated that one, 30-story vertical farm could sustain 50,000 people per year. To feed all urban Americans, the US would have to build 5,084 of Despommier’s vertical farms. At an estimated cost of over $100 million per farm, feeding US America’s urban population purely off of vertical farms would require an initial investment of over $500 billion, $1,613 per urban US American.

The American agriculture industry consumes over 100 billion liters, roughly 20%, of all diesel and gasoline consumed in the US. At about $1 per liter, agriculture spends nearly $100 billion per year on fuel for transportation, fertilization and pest control. By theoretically eliminating the need for petroleum-based pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers, and by significantly lowering transportation distances, saved petroleum costs could pay for the construction of all 5,084 vertical farms over 5 years.

Agriculture consumes 70% of our planet’s available freshwater. Municipally-owned water treatment plants in the US treat roughly 132 billion liters of wastewater per day. Whereas most farms lose the majority of water through imperfect irrigation, a self-contained vertical farm could recycle close to 100% of water used in aeroponic and hydroponic agriculture.

New York City’s people produce nearly 4 billion liters of wastewater every day. It is theoretically possible to derive 100 million kilowatt-hours of electricity from New York’s solid waste alone – enough to power 4 of Despommier’s vertical farms.


Sources:                                                         

Despommier, Dickson. “The Rise of Vertical Farms.” Scientific American. November, 2009. (60-67).
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-rise-of-vertical-farms

“Dickson Despommier’s Vertical Farms Feed Cities From Skyscrapers.” EarthSky. February 6th, 2009.
http://earthsky.org/food/feeding-future-cities-with-vertical-farms

“US Wastewater Treatment.” Center for Sustainable Systems. 2009.
http://css.snre.umich.edu/css_doc/CSS04-14.pdf

Obese Americans pay $2,460 more in medical bills each year than non-obese Americans. That comes to about $6.74 per day. The average American spends about $10 a day on food, a large portion of that going to processed foods and fast foods because they are considered cheaper. Eating a healthy Mediterranean diet is estimated to cost about $16 per day, $6 more than the average. Therefore, eating healthy instead of eating cheap processed foods can actually save the average American about 74 cents per day when considering medical costs.

*     *     * 
 Agriculture is responsible for 70% of water consumed by humans on the planet. It takes roughly 100 liters of water to grow 1 kilogram of potatoes and 4,000 liters for 1 kilogram of rice. To raise 1 kilogram of beef takes nearly 13,000 liters of water. Therefore, one 150-gram burger patty is responsible for nearly 1,950 liters of water. The equivalent amount could grow 20 kilograms of potatoes.

Over 14 billion burgers are consumed in the United States each year. At 150 grams per patty, Americans eat nearly 6 million kilograms of burger meat each day. The total amount of beef consumed daily by Americans, including steaks and other forms of the meat, is nearly 33 million kilograms. The production of that beef consumes nearly 429 billion liters of water. The equivalent amount could grow over 4 billion kilograms of potatoes, enough to give nearly every human on the planet 2 potatoes every day.

China’s total daily beef consumption is over 17 million kilograms per year, about half of what the United States consumes. With a population of over 1.6 billion, the average Chinese eats about 4 kilograms of beef each year. With a population of over 300,000, the average American eats nearly 40 kilograms of beef each year, 10 times that of the average Chinese.

Roughly 30 percent of the planet’s entire land surface is used by livestock. Over 1/3 of global arable land is used to produce feed for livestock with nearly 50 percent of all world grains going to feed animals or to be converted into biofuels. Whereas rain forests once covered 14 percent of the planet’s land surface, they now only cover 6 percent, with over 6,000 square meters slashed every second of every day. Nearly 70 percent of former forests in the Amazon have been turned over to grazing.

The average cow belches 6 liters of methane per day.  The estimated population of cattle in the world is 1.5 billion. That means that each day on this planet cows belch 9 billion liters, 3.3 trillion liters per year, 37 percent of all human-induced methane emissions. Methane works as a greenhouse gas and traps 23 times as much heat as carbon dioxide. Cattle are also responsible for 65 percent of human-induced nitrous oxide emissions and 64 percent of ammonia emissions—UN reports affirm that cattle-rearing contributes more to global warming than automobiles and other forms of transportation combined.

*     *     *
According to UN reports, 100 grams of insects can provide more than 100 percent of daily recommended minerals and vitamins. For every 100 grams of dried caterpillars, there are 53 grams of protein. The raising of insects can have a positive environmental impact in conjunction with waste disposal and offer nearly 250 percent more protein than the equivalent amount of beef.


Sources:                                                         

Edible Insects, Important Source of Protein in Central Africa. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. 2008.
http://www.fao.org/newsroom/en/news/2004/51409/index.html.

How Much Would it Cost to Eat Like a Mediterranean? Mediterranean Book. February 27, 2010.
http://www.mediterraneanbook.com/2010/02/27/cost-eat-mediterranean/.

Andrus, Becki. Rising Medical Bills Because of Obesity. Ezine Articles. July, 2010.
http://ezinearticles.com/?Rising-Medical-Bills-Because-of-Obesity&id=4608059.

Daley, Erin and Joel Haggard. Greater China Region Presents Opportunities For U.S. Beef. National Cattlemen’s Beef Association. July 2010.
http://www.beefusa.org/uDocs/greaterchinaregionpresentsopportunities.pdf.

U.S. Beef and Cattle Industry. USDA Economic Research Service. July 30, 2010.
http://www.ers.usda.gov/news/BSECoverage.htm.

Rearing Cattle Produces More Greenhouse Gases Than Driving Cars, UN Report Warns. UN News Center. November 29, 2006.
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?newsID=20772&CR1=warning.

Home. Dir. Yann Arthus-Bertrand. Elzevir Films. 2009.

Friedman, Thomas L. Hot, Flat, Crowded. New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux; 1 edition. September 8, 2008.

The World Health Organization recommends that children be exclusively fed breast milk for their first 6 months and continue breastfeeding while complimenting with other foods for up to 2 years. However, less than 40% of infants on the planet are exclusively breastfed for their first 6 months. In all countries in the world it is cheaper to breastfeed than buy formula, yet American low-income families are 40% more likely to feed their children formula instead. When a family’s income averages the equivalent of $300 per month, formula for 1 infant could consume as much as 45% of living costs.

In addition to saving close to $1,600 per year, women who breastfeed have a lower risk of breast cancer and ovarian cancer and are able to return to their pre-pregnancy weights faster. Breast milk also contains antibodies that help prevent pneumonia and diarrhea, the 2 primary causes of child mortality. Adults who were breastfed as babies have proven to have lower blood pressure and cholesterol as well as lower rates of obesity and type-2 diabetes.

Bisphenol-A (BPA) is an organic compound commonly found in the lining or infant formula and baby bottles and is so common that trace amounts can be found in the urine of 92% of Americans. BPA acts as an estrogen mimic and may be partially responsible for the early onset of puberty in youths, obesity in adults, diabetes and for average sperm counts in men declining by nearly 50% since 1960. Canada banned products with BPA in 2008 after concern over its adverse effects on infants and children. 

*     *     *
Crotch-less pants traditionally worn by Chinese infants are slowly making way for China’s $200 million a year disposable diaper market. China’s landfills are now piled with more than 1 billion used diapers each year, a number that is expected to grow by 50% year on year. By comparison, Americans are responsible for throwing away 18 billion disposable diapers each year. End to end, that is enough to wrap the equator of the Earth in a 3 meter-wide diaper. 

Combined, China and the USA account for nearly 100,000 metric tons of petroleum plastics and 770,000 metric tons of paper pulp that go into landfills each year from disposable diaper consumption (in addition to numerous chemical dyes, adhesives, sanitizers and absorbents that leach into soils.) Nearly 4% of all diaper waste in America is fecal matter. Therefore, over 33,000 metric tons of baby fecal matter goes into landfills each year, often in an anaerobic environment that can be a breeding ground for disease. American children poop enough to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool every 4 weeks yet disposable diapers make it so that very little ever finds its way into proper sewage treatment centers. 

American children raised on disposable diapers consume approximately 7000 diapers in their first few years. With reusable cloth diapers, between 20 and 100 are enough depending on the quality of the make and the amount of times laundry is done each week. Reusable cloth diapers can save parents as much as $2000 per year. However, a study done by the Environment Agency of England found that the total carbon footprint in the production and consumption of each disposable diaper is 550 kilograms of CO2.  For reusable cloth diapers CO2 consumption is actually higher at 570 kilograms when accounting for typical washer and dryer use. If parents wash in full loads at temperatures less than 60 degrees Celsius and line dry, CO2 consumption can drop to 340 kilograms per reusable cloth diaper. 


Sources:

Breastfeeding Basics.  Breastfeeding Benefits and Barriers: Economics.  January, 2010.
http://www.breastfeedingbasics.org/cgi-bin/deliver.cgi/content/Introduction/adm_economics.html.

Center for Disease Control.  Provisional Exclusive Breastfeeding Rates by Socio-demographic Factors, Among Children Born in 2006.  January, 2010. http://www.cdc.gov/breastfeeding/data/NIS_data/2006/socio-demographic.htm

World Health Organization.  10 Facts on Breastfeeding.  July, 2009.
http://www.who.int/features/factfiles/breastfeeding/en/.

Patisaul, Heather.  Assessing Risks from Bisphenol A.  Scientific American.  Issue: January-February, 2010.

Grady, Denise.  F.D.A. Concerned About Substance in Food Packaging.  New York Times.  January 15, 2010.

Environment Agency.  An Updated Lifecycle Assessment Study For Disposable and Reusable Nappies.  January, 2010.
http://randd.defra.gov.uk/Document.aspx?Document=WR0705_7589_FRP.pdf.

China Daily.  Open-Crotch Pants Make Way for Disposable Diapers.  July 16, 2004. http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-07/16/content_349150.htm.

Clean Air Council.  Waste Facts and Figures.  December, 2009.  http://www.cleanair.org/Waste/wasteFacts.html.

California Energy Commission.  Consumer Energy Center: Clothes Dryers.  December, 2009.  http://www.consumerenergycenter.org/home/appliances/dryers.html.

Automobiles:  Single drivers on average consume nearly 0.11 liters of fuel for every kilometer travelled.  When carbon-based fuels are burned, they emit about 3.15 times their weight as carbon dioxide (CO2).  Given that 1 liter of gasoline weighs 760 grams it will then emit 2.4 kilograms of CO2 when burned.  Therefore, a single driver is responsible for about 239 grams of CO2 for every kilometer travelled. 

Planes:  The Boeing 737 airplane is the most produced jet airliner is history.  There are over 1,250 in the air at any given moment.  Each burns about 50 liters per minute at an average speed of 850 kilometers per hour.  That means that each kilometer travelled by a 737 burns over 14 liters.  Considering that the average plane can seat around 145 people, each passenger of a 737 is responsible for nearly 0.10 liters of jet fuel for each kilometer travelled.  Given that 1 liter of jet fuel weighs about 830 grams, it will then emit 2.61 kilograms of CO2 when burned.  Therefore, a single airline passenger is responsible for about 261 grams of CO2 for every kilometer travelled.

Trains:  Rail has the unique ability to run purely off of an electrical power grid which, in the case of China, is 90 percent powered by fossil fuels.  The power grid in the USA is 70 percent powered by fossil fuels and in Britain, 74 percent.  The ATOC (Association of Train Operating Companies) estimates that the average British rail passenger is responsible for 61 grams of CO2 for every kilometer travelled. 

*     *     *
China is home to nearly 78,000 kilometers of railroad track.  With an investment of 292 billion US dollars, China plans to expand its railway network to 120,000 kilometers.  Of the proposed expansion, 13,000 kilometers will be high-speed rail. 

In 2008, nearly 1.5 billion train tickets were purchased in China resulting in over 773 billion kilometers travelled by rail.  Taking into account the British estimate of 61 grams and China’s fossil fuel-powered electric grid, China’s rail would be responsible for over 74 grams of CO2 per passenger per kilometer travelled.  Therefore, China’s 2008 rail service would account for 57 billion kilograms of CO2. 

If China’s 1.5 billion rail travelers had decided to fly the same distance instead of riding the rails in 2008, it would have been responsible for an additional 145 billion kilograms of CO2.  The average human’s respiration emits approximately 1 kilogram of CO2 per day.  The theoretical amount of CO2 saved by China’s rail service is equivalent to adding nearly 400 million more breathing humans to the planet. 


Sources:

Electricity Production in China.  Library of Parliament.  October, 2009.
http://www.parl.gc.ca/information/library/PRBpubs/prb0704-e.htm.

Making Electricity for the UK.  Association of Electricity Producers.  October, 2009.
http://www.aepuk.com/need_info.php.

Steiner, Christopher.  $20 Per Gallon.  Grand Central Publishing: 1 edition.  July 15,2009.

Baseline Energy Statement – Energy Consumption and Carbon Dioxide Emissions on the Railway.  ATOC.  March, 2007.
http://www.atoc-comms.org/admin/userfiles/Baseline%20statement%20-%20FINAL%20-%20Print%20version.pdf

High-Speed Rail in China.  The Transport Politic.  January 12, 2009.
http://www.thetransportpolitic.com/2009/01/12/high-speed-rail-in-china/

Rail Transport in the People’s Republic of China.  Wikipedia.  October, 2009.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_transport_in_the_People's_Republic_of_China

Daley, Will.  Bombadier China Venture Wins $4 Billion Train Award.  Bloomberg.  September 28, 2009.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601082&sid=a1hskv5cBMoQ.

China Completes “Lifeline” Railway in Mountainous Yunnan.  Xinhua.  September 28, 2009.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-09/28/content_12122670.htm

The price of gasoline at the pumps in the Netherlands is currently 1.42 Euros per liter, the equivalent of $7.60 per gallon.  The price of gasoline at the pumps in Venezuela is currently 0.097 bolivares fuerte per liter, the equivalent of about $0.16 per gallon.

*     *     *
Driving:  If the price of gasoline in US America rose to $10 per gallon, it would cost $225 to fill the tank of a Ford Explorer.  Driving to work 10 miles and back would cost about $13 per day.  If one worked an average of 230 days per year, yearly work transportation costs would near $3,000.  Being that the average American drives a total of 15,000 miles per year, the money spent on fuel for the SUV would rise to a total of about $8,800 per year.  It is estimated that at this rate, the gas bill for the average family would rise from 16 percent of its retail spending to 40 percent.

Air Travel:  There are about 11 million commercial flights flown domestically and internationally to and from the USA each year.  The planes get an average of about 0.2 miles per gallon of jet fuel at a wholesale cost of just over $1 per gallon.  Averaging about 800 miles per flight, all US commercial airlines combined spend about $44 billion per year on fuel alone.  If the hypothetical price increase were to proportionally affect jet fuel, commercial airlines would be forced to spend about $140 billion on fuel each year.  Historically, fuel expenses account for about 15 percent of airline operation costs.  Under the hypothetical price increase, fuel costs would account for 40 percent of operation costs driving the price of air tickets up at least $50 for every $100 in fares.  And even with such a price increase, it is predicted that over 1 half of all American airplanes would be grounded as they’d be too costly to fly. 

Electricity:  As increasing fuel costs push people towards hybrid and electric cars, the demands for electricity would increase at least 2-fold.  At current capacity, the US energy grid only supports enough electricity to power 84 percent of the country’s automobiles – that is if all gasoline-powered cars were traded in for hybrids.  With over 26 percent of the world’s known coal reserves residing in the USA, and with no major investments in a sustainable energy grid, agencies would have no choice but to drastically increase coal-fired electricity production.

Food:  Eighty years ago, it was rare that American foods ever travelled more than 100 miles from the farm to the consumer.  Now it is estimated that the average American meal travels 1500 miles to get from the farm to the plate.  Transportation alone is responsible for 8.5 percent of food costs.  With gasoline costing $10 per gallon, transportation would account for about 26.5 percent of non-local food costs, and prices would rise more than 25 cents on the dollar.  This would result in the resurgence of local, small-scale food production to eliminate the 26.5 percent cost of food transportation. 

*     *     *
If the hypothetical price increase was to come in the form of government taxes at the pumps, even with a 50% drop in consumption by American drivers, then in theory the government could save over $1 trillion per year that could be reinvested in a sustainable transportation infrastructure without increasing the costs of air travel. 

China, with over 78,000 kilometers of railroad track, carries 25 percent of the world’s total railway workload.  It is the primary mode of long distance transportation with over 1.4 billion tickets sold each year at about 1 third the cost of air travel.  With a new investment of $292 billion, China plans to extend its railway coverage from 78,000 kilometers to 120,000 kilometers by 2020.

By contrast, Americans only get about 0.56 percent of their total transportation miles by rail.  Air travel accounts for 10.61 percent while highway driving accounts for 88.79 percent. 


Sources:

Skeel, Shirley.  What if Gas Cost $10 a Gallon?  MSN Money.  May 16, 2008.
http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/SavingandDebt/SaveonaCar/WhatIfGasCost10DollarsAGallon.aspx.

Mouawad, Jad.  Lessons on How to Guzzle Less Gas, From Europe and Japan.  The New York Times.  April, 2009.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/05/weekinreview/05mouawad.html?_r=1

Schoen, John W.  What Does Gasoline Cost in Other Countries?  MSNBC.  April, 2006.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12452503/

Energy/Fuel.  Air Transport Association.  July, 2009.
http://www.airlines.org/economics/energy/

2007 Gasoline Consumption.  American Fuels.  March 8, 2008.
http://www.americanfuels.info/2008/03/2007-gasoline-consumption.html

Boehmer, Jay.  2009 Business Travel Survey: U.S. Airlines Swap Fuel Prices for Demand Crisis.  Business Travel News.  June 1, 2009.
http://www.btnonline.com/businesstravelnews/headlines/frontpage_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003978712

Summary 2008 Traffic Data for U.S. and Foreign Airlines: Total Passengers Down 3.5 Percent From 2007.  Rita Bureau of Transportation.  April 23, 2009.
http://www.bts.gov/press_releases/2009/bts019_09/html/bts019_09.html

Rail Transport in the People’s Republic of China.  Wikipedia.  July, 2009
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_transport_in_the_People's_Republic_of_China

Transportation in the United States.  Wikipedia.  July, 2009.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_in_the_United_States