Give Peace A Chance

This from Harvey Paige:

On Saturday, October 24, people around the world gathered to show their support for the environmental goal of decreasing carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere to 350 parts per million (ppm). The earth’s atmospheric CO2 is presently significantly above that concentration and there is great concern in the scientific community that mankind has already reached the point where positive feedback mechanisms will hasten catastrophic climate change. How do we reduce our “carbon footprint?”

One part of the problem is being played out almost daily over our heads. The 178th Fight Wing publication, aptly named “The Thunderer” of May/June 2009 (Vol. 51, No. 4) reported on an award for pumping a lot of fuel at the Springfield-Beckley Municipal Airport. Their refueling operation pumped 5,248,450 gallons, and they defueled 161,654 gallons, for a net fuel usage of 5,086,796 gallons. That is a big carbon footprint.

To appreciate the magnitude of this fuel usage, it is interesting to look at the numbers from an advertisement by CSX railroad. They say that their railroad can move a ton of freight 423 miles on a gallon of fuel. At that rate, the fuel used to make the aircraft roar over our heads would move a ton of freight about 2.15 billion miles, or about 85,000 times around the earth. Thought of in another way, if one’s automobile has a fuel efficiency of 25 miles per gallon, that quantity of fuel will move the car 127 million miles, or the equivalent of about 265 round trips to the moon.

These numbers can be frustrating to imagine or contemplate. What good does it do to bicycle downtown, or to drive an efficient automobile, in the face of such numbers? But the numbers can also give hope,. Remember that Einstein said “You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war.” So, if mankind can prepare for peace, instead of for war, we might also save our planet from catastrophic climate change.