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[Joe]

That's 60 square kilometers for the Europeans out there.

How Much of the Arctic Is Each of Us Melting? Quite a Bit, New Study Says
Each American is responsible for enough carbon emissions to melt as much as 645 square feet of ice a year, researchers' calculations show.

The study makes a direct link between the amount of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions and sea ice loss, finding that for each metric ton of CO2 emitted during the period between 1953 and 2012, roughly 32 square feet of sea ice was lost.

The study's authors, climate scientists Dirk Notz and Julienne Stroeve, applied this finding to per capita emissions data from 2013 for each country, and found that the average person causes the loss of hundreds of feet of sea ice each year. But the U.S. and other high-emitting countries like Australia, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are not average. Americans, for instance, have a personal footprint of as much as 645 square feet of ice loss. China, a large emitter but with a massive population, has lower per-capita emissions, with up to 322 square feet of ice loss per person.

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Link to study from Science journal magazine:
Observed Arctic sea-ice loss directly follows anthropogenic CO2 emission

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Friendly reminder: there has not been a single serious climate change discussion between politicians during this entire, mind-numbingly long election cycle.

 

[Surface of Me]

Im probably double that with my cheeseburger intake.

 

[Steel]

Friendly reminder: there has not been a single serious climate change discussion between politicians during this entire, mind-numbingly long election cycle.

It helps that one of the candidates believes it's a Chinese conspiracy to hurt America.

 

[dperrin]

Everyone needs to watch Before The Flood. It definitely made me more motivated to do my part to stop climate change.

 

[IndoAssassin]

It's Nov and its 16 deg C outside wtf? I'm near Vancouver.

 

[commedieu]

I'd do my part if big oil and others did theirs.

Until then. The flow of spice continues.

 

[BlazingDarkness]

I'd do my part if big oil and others did theirs.

Until then. The flow of spice continues.

Do you not feel a sense of personal responsibility? (Genuine question)

 

[IISANDERII]

60 square kilometres of ice?? Is ice a 2 dimensional object?

 

[adamantypants]

Im probably double that with my cheeseburger intake.

This is exactly where my mind went too
"yeah if I concentrated all my farts onto arctic ice I could probably do that"

 

[Graphics Horse]

That's 60 square kilometers for the Europeans out there.

60 square meters maybe?

 

[Reverend Funk]

Whoops

 

[Syncytia]

60 square kilometres of ice?? Is ice a 2 dimensional object?

Yeah I don't get what this means. Need a measurement in volume...

Edit: I suppose it doesn't matter much if you're making a country to country relative comparison but the number itself is still meaningless.

 

[entremet]

Cars are the biggest culprits I'd wager here.

 

[Lime]

Seriously I get so annoyed by the excess that Aussies and US Americans live in and the lack of collective and individual willingness to do anything about it

 

[xptoxyz]

Cars are the biggest culprits I'd wager here.

Not only that. When you look at things like household energy consumption is greater per capita. I think there's research out there (have not verified sources) saying as much as 2.5 greater than other developed countries. I think per capita consumption was second only to Canada.

 

[Mental Atrophy]

I'd do my part if big oil and others did theirs.

Until then. The flow of spice continues.

You are irreparably damaging the earth.

 

[Grimm Fandango]

60 square meters maybe?

Yeah op needs to be corrected.

60 square kilometers holy shit

 

[Chezzymann]

I wonder if it has to do with air conditioning? At my house in houston we have to have air conditioning on most of the time for 8 months of the year because it's 90+ degrees from April to November. If we leave it off during the heat of a summer day while we're gone it takes over an hour to get back to room temperature.

Also cars. You literally have to drive in most major cities. There's no way around it

 

[cheezcake]

I wonder if it has to do with air conditioning? At my house in houston we have to have air conditioning on most of the time for 8 months of the year because it's 90+ degrees from April to November. If we leave it off during the heat of a summer day while we're gone it takes over an hour to get back to room temperature.

Also cars. You literally have to drive in most major cities. There's no way around it

Holy shit you leave it on when you're out of the house? That's an enormous waste of energy.

I'd do my part if big oil and others did theirs.

Until then. The flow of spice continues.

Or you could be a proactive member of society

 

[Sakura]

That seems like a crazy large number. That would make America responsible for what, 20 billion square metres of ice lost each year? Then when you add in all the other countries? How much arctic ice even exists?

 

[the1npc]

Cars are the biggest culprits I'd wager here.

Meat consumption especially cattle

 

[M52B28]

I've been living trying to have a low imprint for a while.

Clothing that takes a great amount of water to wash, I don't wash it often, I just hang them in the bathroom when I shower. Sometimes, I'll do a light hand wash.

Mainly I'm talking about jeans and other heavy made laundry. When I do a wash, I wash on cold and on light cycle.

I use public transit and walk nearly everywhere I can't get to by bus. On rare occasions, I'll get an Uber or Lyft.

I take small, 5 minutes showers, etc.

My energy consumption is pretty small. Apart from a phone I charge, my laptop, battery bank and my iPod, I barely do anything that warrants excessive energy usage. I do like to have a light on around the house.

Hmm, the place where I can improve is my food consumption, but other that, I feel like I have a lower impact compared to some.

The most resource intensive activity that I do is ceramics. Lots of water, waste and by products. I've been recycling lots of clay lately, but that doesn't counteract the amount of energy a kiln requires.

 

[commedieu]

Do you not feel a sense of personal responsibility? (Genuine question)

For polar ice melting? At 33, I've been using gas and electricity for a while, as well as eating beef. Industries that knew the damage to the environment kept it going. I mean, don't get me wrong. I recycle, do what I can in a realistic way. But that's so the people going through trash can eat or buy some booze for themselves, not because I think it's going to save the planet. I have no feeling of responsibility for my country detonating 150+ nukes in the atmosphere, as well as even more underground. Which is all melting more ice than my footprint will ever do, and into my children's children's lifetimes.

I'd feel guilty if I knew about the impacts of my business, then lobbied and sued people to keep it secret. But no, not for living a legal life. I adjust when I can realistically.. But it's like being down by 1 million points and going in the last quarter.

People are going on a witch hunt now. Going at eachothers throats as if individuals make legislation for huge oil to pollute their water and oxygen, or deforestation. This shit is old, we had a chance to do something but now we are on a downward spiral. Unless we all change, tomorrow, including industry, me using plastic from plants isn't going to do too much. I'm all up for it, but I'm not going to pretend that people have viable alternatives to their lifesyle and that people living within the law of land are the crux of our global contamination problem.

 

[Xe4]

That seems like a crazy large number. That would make America responsible for what, 20 billion square metres of ice lost each year? Then when you add in all the other countries? How much arctic ice even exists?

It covers 3% of the world's surface, so quite a bit. And it grows every year, too, so that adds to the ammount melted. It's not as if the ice just melts, it follows a periodic cycle with the ammount melted in the summer becoming greater and greater.

 

[Jenenser]

dont we need the volume?

 

[Lenardo]

645 square FEET?

ok MATH TIME

9 sf in a sy

645/9 - 71.66 sy annually...lets just say that is square meters (slightly less actually)


1 square kilometer = 1000000 square meters
1000000/71.66= 13955 (rounded up) persons per square kilometer
300000000 people= roughly- in the USA
300000000/13955=21498 (rounded) square kilometers of sea ice for the entire population of the US

at the peak melt season there is ABOUT 4.5 million square kilometers of arctic sea ice... or 4.7%

when you consider that peak FREEZE there is about 11-13 million square kilometers of sea ice... and every year 7-9 million sqkm melt....

not going into cubic feet since that would make it seem even lower.. since they measure volume in meters & most sea ice is currently 2+meters thick,..divide all those numbers in half for area...

 

[PAULINK]

I didn't do it.

 

[Skellig Gra]

You are irreparably damaging the earth.

Says the guy wasting power on an internet message board.

 

[Hackworth]

Fucking Australia

 

[the-pi-guy]

Do you not feel a sense of personal responsibility? (Genuine question)

One person doing something isn't really going to help a lot.

We have to eat, use electricity, drive places, etc.
Now, we can obviously reduce how much we eat, how much electricity we use, and drive less, but the amount that we can realistically do that isn't enough to make things drastically better.

We need companies to do better. We need cleaner forms of energy. That by itself would drastically reduce that whole chart. We need cleaner forms of energy from power companies, and cleaner forms of energy for vehicles (cars, trucks, tractors, etc)
Those kinds of things would make actually make a noticeable difference. And that is the issue. Most of those things are either really really expensive and out of people's reach or not happening.

It's not a lack of personal responsibility, it's a lack of resources.

 

[Fox Mulder]

Do you not feel a sense of personal responsibility? (Genuine question)

Not really.

I'm going to keep eating meat and using electricity.

I am for governments moving to make emissions laws, alternate energy sources, and giant corporations running more clean.

Republicans say the problem doesn't exist, while dems preach to us about why we are assholes for eating meat or whatever, while nothing major changes.

 

[Zaraki_Kenpachi]

For polar ice melting? At 33, I've been using gas and electricity for a while, as well as eating beef. Industries that knew the damage to the environment kept it going. I mean, don't get me wrong. I recycle, do what I can in a realistic way. But that's so the people going through trash can eat or buy some booze for themselves, not because I think it's going to save the planet. I have no feeling of responsibility for my country detonating 150+ nukes in the atmosphere, as well as even more underground. Which is all melting more ice than my footprint will ever do, and into my children's children's lifetimes.

I'd feel guilty if I knew about the impacts of my business, then lobbied and sued people to keep it secret. But no, not for living a legal life. I adjust when I can realistically.. But it's like being down by 1 million points and going in the last quarter.

People are going on a witch hunt now. Going at eachothers throats as if individuals make legislation for huge oil to pollute their water and oxygen, or deforestation. This shit is old, we had a chance to do something but now we are on a downward spiral. Unless we all change, tomorrow, including industry, me using plastic from plants isn't going to do too much. I'm all up for it, but I'm not going to pretend that people have viable alternatives to their lifesyle and that people living within the law of land are the crux of our global contamination problem.

Lol so because we didn't fix this thirty years ago you'll continue to do everything you can to keep contributing to climate change because fuck it when it's inhabital you can blame it on someone else? No wonder you think we're fucked with that kind of mindset.

 

[Mental Atrophy]

Says the guy wasting power on an internet message board.

If this is supposed to be some kind of hypocrisy accusation, you'll be disappointed to learn that I live in a passive house that doesn't have a furnace, delivers more solar energy to the grid than I consume 2-6 months out of the year, and I've biked to work almost exclusively since 2006. I am actually trying, and my goal is net zero-energy, instead of brushing it off as somebody else's problem that I shouldn't care about.

 

[Elfforkusu]

These are changes you make at the state and national policy level, not individually. Stuff like finding and funding carbon neutral replacements for gasoline and coal, eliminating carbon positive fertilizers. Embracing nuclear power. Etc

The Republicans refuse to acknowledge the problem. The Democrats refuse to acknowledge that their solution isn't a solution. And around we go.

 

[commedieu]

Lol so because we didn't fix this thirty years ago you'll continue to do everything you can to keep contributing to climate change because fuck it when it's inhabital you can blame it on someone else? No wonder you think we're fucked with that kind of mindset.

I didnt say any of that.

No, we are fucked because ice is barely growing at a record sadness. There was a point to where this could be at least attempted to corrected probably back in the 70s or so. Maybbbee?

A bunch of feel good measures now that everyone notices massive extinctions and ocean acidification is a bit late to the game. as I said in my post, I do what I can. So get off of your conflict free horse, But it's to help out my fellow man more so than pretending this is going to be resolved by effort at the final hour. The world is going to continue to face unprecedented weather for the rest of our lifetimes, due to permanent melting affecting our jet streams and ocean currents. That's the reality we all face.

It's going to be inhabital. There is no real way to alter that, unless the entire globe unites to do so. It's a bit grim, but the earth will be fine after the reset. We flopped it, bigly.

I'm not spraying shit into the ozone. But I am driving a car, use computers, use delivery services from amazon, use this electric right here to type this, eat imported food. Etc. Etc. I do eat mostly chicken tho.

It sucks but, what else can you do? We aren't going to change ocean temperatures with our green lifestyles right now. There are some major engine problems happening with the earth, it can be made a better place. But there is permanent damage that we definitely caused as a species.

I'd love to live off the grid in some moon cocoon. It will be a good view of record heatwaves and rising water levels.

 

[Duracelllll]

Holy shit you leave it on when you're out of the house? That's an enormous waste of energy.

Completely normal apparently.
http://m.neogaf.com/showthread.php?t=1093347&page=1

 

[Toxi]

That's 60 square kilometers for the Europeans out there.

Dude, 60 square kilometers is about 23 square miles.

 

[R10Neymarfan]

Carbon tax and stop the subsidies to the beef and dairy industry. Let's the real prices solve everything

 

[Lys Skygge]

Well this is upsetting

 

[Transhuman]

Global warming is bad, but that is such a bullshit figure.

 

[Transhuman]

Average American melts 60m² per year
320 million Americans
Surface area of Antarctica ice sheet = 14 million km²

(Number of Americans)x(amount melting per year)=19.2 million km²

I guess Antartica is gone next year. Sometime around August probably. If you live near the coast start packing.

 

[IISANDERII]

Average American melts 60m² per year
320 million Americans
Surface area of Antarctica ice sheet = 14 million km²

(Number of Americans)x(amount melting per year)=19.2 million km²

I guess Antartica is gone next year. Sometime around August probably. If you live near the coast start packing.

That's only the surface. When the surface melts, there's another surface right there to take its place.
It would be concerning if it were 60 cubic metres

 

[Wensih]

Cars are the biggest culprits I'd wager here.

Electricity, Transportation, and Cows.

 

[MogCakes]

We all know the true culprit is how much we fart.

 

[jrcbandit]

Holy shit you leave it on when you're out of the house? That's an enormous waste of energy.



Or you could be a proactive member of society

I have a cat so I have to leave my air conditioning on when I'm not home. I leave it at 78 F so it isn't too wasteful. Plus, in Texas it's 95+ F for ~5 months and 80+ F most of the year aside from Dec-Feb so you need to have the AC on allot.

I do wash my clothes in a high efficiency washer using cold water at least. Can't do much about transportation, Houston is impossible to get around without a car. I'd love to get a 3 series Tesla eventually.