The 1 Ton Cube, Explained

by Dave Ames, Science Teacher, Cohasset High School

Our complex energy-dependent industrialized nation needs to quickly find ways to reduce its emissions of CO2 gas. Increased concentrations of CO2 gas in the earth's atmosphere is the very likely cause of global warming. Scientists around the world predict that the effects of global warming will be very devastating and costly to humans and our entire earth over the next 100 years. We must find ways to reduce our CO2 emissions. Please support alternative renewable and non-polluting energy projects and try to reduce your own consumption of fossils fuels when possible. We must act now to reduce the burning of fossil fuels for energy.

A very important statistic from the Environmental Protection Agency, along with some mathematics, highlights the enormity of the CO2 emissions problem. The largest source of CO2 emissions globally is the combustion of fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas in power plants, automobiles, industrial facilities and other sources.

From the EPA's Executive Summary of the Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks: 1990-2004 (April 2006) USEPA #430-R-06-002…

Page 6 - "Within the United States, fuel combustion accounted for 94 percent of CO2 emissions in 2004. Globally, approximately 25,575 Teragrams (Tg) of CO2 were added to the atmosphere through the combustion of fossil fuels in 2002, of which the United States accounted for about 23 percent."

From these government statistics we did some math to figure out the per capita CO2 emissions in the US:
25,575 Tg is equal to 25,575,000,000 metric tons (mT) of CO2 emissions. Since the US was responsible for emitting 23 percent of all this CO2, the US emitted (25,575,000,000 mT  x 23% = 5,882,300,000 mT) 5,882,300,000 mT of CO2 in 2002. If we divide this number by the approximate number of people in the US in 2002, the per capita emissions of CO2 was (5,882,300,000 mT / 300,000,000 people = 196 mT/person) 196 mT / person per year.

This means that the US is emitting more than one ton of CO2 gas per person into the atmosphere every two days. The giant 27ft x 27ft x 27ft cube that we are making represents the volume equivalent of 1 metric ton of CO2 gas at standard atmospheric pressure. Every two days, because you live in this fossil fuel dependant country, you are responsible for emitting approximately this cube’s volume of CO2 into the atmosphere.

Natural carbon dioxide absorption through photosynthesis can't keep up with this emissions rate. The amount of CO2 in our atmosphere is rapidly increasing and this will have serious climate consequences. Please see the movie "An Inconvenient Truth" to learn more about the science and consequences of global climate change.