The level of pollution soon to be placed in the atmosphere by China and India would negate, twice over, all the pollution that North America and Europe currently put into the air! If North America and Europe closed our entire Societies, producing 0% air pollution it would have 0% effect on the level of pollution produced Worlwide! The emphasis has been on “cars causing air pollution” when the total number of cars, Worldwide is estimated in 2002, the world’s passenger car fleet hit 531 million.
It is believed that at this growth rate, the number of cars on earth will double within the next 30 years. …
Source: World Watch Institute
Link: http://www.worldwatch.org/node/1537
Michael Renner: Senior Researcher
In 2002, the world’s passenger car fleet hit 531 million. A quarter of these cars were in the United States, a country with just five percent of the world’s population, and a long known love affair for the automobile. The average car in the US travels 10 percent more each year than a car in the United Kingdom, about 50 percent more than one in Germany, and almost 200 percent more than a car in Japan. And while Americans drive less fuel-efficient cars—the carbon emissions of U.S. automobiles are roughly equivalent to those of the entire Japanese economy – the fourth largest carbon emitter—efforts to raise mandated fuel efficiency standards in the U.S. are hitting constant road blocks.
Source: Friends of the Earth
Link: http://www.foe.org/air-and-water/ship-emissions
Ship Air Pollution
Authors Note: Number of ships.
**It has been estimated that only 7,000 cargo ships produce as much pollution as every car on Earth. This is 7,000 out of over 50,000.
As at 1st January 2008, the world trading fleet was made up of 50,525 ships, with a combined tonnage of 728,225,000 gross tonnes.
The amount of air pollution produced by ocean-going vessels is staggering. A single cargo ship can produce as much air pollution as 350,000 cars in an hour. These large, ocean-going ships operate on diesel engines the size of a single-family home, and most burn “bunker” fuel, which is cheap, but much more polluting than fuels used to power vehicles. Bunker fuel contains high concentrations of toxic compounds banned from use in most other industrial and consumer applications. As global trade increases, global shipping is expected to double within the next decade, bringing shipping pollution to new highs. EPA estimates that emissions from ocean-going vessels will double their contributions to the national mobile source inventory of sulfur oxides and quadruple particulate matter—are both of which major health threats. According to EPA, by 2030 shipping is expected to grow nearly three-fold over 2000 levels. This increased level of shipping not only degrades air quality, but also contributes to the acidification and eutrophication of waterways through deposition and carbon dioxide emissions.
Therefore I submit, the easy target of automobile pollution should continue to be improved as quickly as feasible, we should instead focus our attention on the major offenders! Governments have a tendancy to “do the easy thing”, this to give the impression they are actually doing something substantial.
