procrastination as an art form

Today I'm supposed to be writing an article for the local EI group's newsletter, but I was too busy feeling lousy lately, so I'm taking a day off. Thus I'm going to get all the latest global warming figures in one place because I find that interesting, which will probably result in roughly the same number of words I'm supposed to cough up for the newsletter.

Here's my one previously-known fact: Americans on average release 44,000 lbs of CO₂ each into the atmosphere per year.

Today I learned that

• A gallon of gas converts to 20 lbs of CO₂.
• According to Cecil at The Straight Dope, it's cow burps, not farts, that put so much methane into the atmosphere, but methane is responsible for 18% of global warming. Cows probably wouldn't be a big deal if we weren't cranking out methane in other ways, like burning down a bunch of rainforests.
• To keep CO₂ concentrations in the atmosphere the same as they are now, we (the world) would have to cut emissions by 60% to 80%. Also, particulate pollution is keeping temperatures down by as much as 0.8 C (1.5 ^oF), but American and European sulphate particulate pollution caused the drought in the Sahel (below the Sahara) and killed lots of people whom we, as nations, did not know personally. So more particulates is probably not the answer.
• According to the EPA's worksheet, assuming I guessed my electricity bill correctly, my household is at roughly 30,000 lbs/person/year, which is average for a household of two and doesn't match the figure I learned before today, which I'll look up again in a minute. This calculator requires a little more information, but I did a bunch of math for it and it said that I am responsible for 144,000 lbs, which can't be right, so whatever. Anyway, it also says that individual emissions, like from your personal electricity use, are only about 25% of the per capita emissions in industrialized countries.
• I'm kind of annoyed I spent any time on that last calculator.
• This calculator says my entire household only puts out about 24,000 lbs of CO₂. They are trying to sell 'green tags' that are essentially donations to help develop more renewable energy sources, which sounds like a good idea.
• So, back in the article I linked to a week or two ago, it says that 44,000 number is per capita, and a third of it is personal stuff, like cars and electric bills. To be Kyoto Protocol compliant (which will not stop global warming but is a step in the right direction), we, personally, have to cut our emissions to 11,000 lbs/person/year, which means that I, personally, am going to melt the polar ice caps if you believe the first or second calculators, but not if you believe the third one.
• Flying is roughly equivalent to a month's worth of driving an SUV around.

So, that's a lot of bad news, but on the carbon sequestration front we have:

• Plankton poop. (This is my favorite idea.)
• Not trees, so much. Apparently you have to supply a lot of extra nitrogen if you want to accomplish much.
• Here's a comparatively boring Wikipedia page.

Since we aren't likely to stop driving, flying, or using way more electricity than we'd like to even if it kills us, maybe we'll die. I expect, however, that somebody will cook up a fancy way to let us keep doing it. Hopefully it'll involve something funny like plankton poop, and it won't backfire. (Sorry.)