Ethics of Greenhouse Gas Contribution by Square Footage



Ethics of Greenhouse Gas Contribution by Square FootageJarryd SorensenSalt Lake Community College is at the door step of the Salt Lake valley. The leaves have turned to the warm colors of fall and have started there decent to the earth. This is also the beginning of the pilot light igniting a burst of natural gas or propane heating up tubes that have a large amount of air being passed through them to keep the occupants of a house warm. These events are one of the many factors that force in the season of the inversion and the dangerous levels of pollutants in the air. “Treat the earth well: it was not given to you by your parents, it was loaned to you by your children. We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.” Oglala Sioux proverb (Cook 2011)Ethics of Greenhouse Gas Contribution by Square FootageThree-bedroom, two baths, three car garage, large family room with vaulted ceilings, 2,500 square foot on the main level. Basement is partially finished, two bedrooms and one bath. This large home is in a large corner lot, in a cu-de-sac and comes with the appliances, washer and dryer and backyard is featured with a waterfall and stream in a closed water flow loop. RV parking pad and vinyl fencing closing in the back yard. This was the ad that was used to market a house for sale in West Jordan. When shopping for a house, the home buyers goal is to acquire as much square footage for the cheapest price. If possible purchase a house that will have equity quickly, for a better return on investment. But what is our return on investment for the monthly purchasing and burning fossil fuels. Where during the winter months the consumption for fossil fuels being burned in cycles twenty-four hours a day for several months. What is one’s own contribution to the pollution? Are we conscience of our usage or is it but a temporary thought in a moment in time only? What are we putting into the atmosphere that is polluting our air? Global Warming PotentialThe types of gases that are classified as having global warming effects is the well-known, carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O). The copious quantities of carbon dioxides that enters the atmosphere are from the burning of fossil fuels. This is the same fuel that we humans extract from the earth. These fuels include coal, natural gas, oil, propane, burning oil, and diesel fuel. We are using these fuels to power our automobiles, heat our homes, and cook our food. Other contributors are wood burning and from industry production. The other gases that are produced are smaller in quantities but have a higher heat holding value. These gases are methane and nitrous oxide. Methane is produced in the production of coal, natural gas, and oil. Methane is also emitted by the way we do agriculture farming and from the solid waste of humans and livestock. The last gas is the nitrous-oxide, this high heat holding gas is emitted in agriculture and in the processes of burning the fossil fuels and solid wastes.GWP Personal Contribution1Let’s look at a typical day for Mr. Home Owner. Mr. Home owner’s daily contribution begins with the brewing of the fine (Green and Free Trade) coffee from Guatemala. The quick microwave heating of a breakfast sandwich. Using his remote, starts the SUV in the garage, and after eating and brushing his teeth leaves for work. This daily commute is a 25 miles to the office 5 days a week. Mr. Home owner works the eight to ten hours per day, working on the dual monitors, laptop device that is broadcasting the information on the screens the information needed to perform his job. Lunch time arrives, heads to lunch with a couple of colleagues from the office. They carpool to a sit-down location, eat their lunch and then back to the heated office where none of the computers were turned off. He wraps up the day with a 25-mile commute back home, stops by the store and picks up a few things and heads home. Mr. Home owner grabs a cold beer from the fridge and then turns on the Monday night football game. At 10:30 after watching the news Mr. home owner turns off the lights and then retires for the evening. Mr. home owner is roughly producing 30 tons of carbon dioxides yearly with a breakdown of the production:(Reay (2005), Automobile (40%), Household (36%), Food (12%), Waste (6%) and Flights (6%) closing up the individual’s climate impact. Industrial Revolution thinking.Since the great industrial revolution, the planets populations have been striving to live in the luxury that Americans are living on a daily basis. As portrayed in the movies, here in America you can get and live the American dream, big house, big vehicle, big money and no worries. Currently in America how many of us grow our own food? We don’t, we go to the store that has all the food we need. How many of us chop the wood to heat our homes and to be able to cook, none of us, because we have it plumbed into the house and it automatically heats the house and the gas or electricity is always at the stove ready for our consumption. Since the great depression and the industrial revolution we have become the American Consumer. We consume natural resources without regards to where it comes from, how it was extracted, who grew it, who dug it, who got paid or not paid to get these materials, what cultures are exploited to make sure we are able to purchase this luxury item. We build homes in deserts that have no water and it gets delivered to the tap every day. Every day we have dependable power to turn on our lights, all provided on the wires from the power plant to the outlet in the wall. We don’t consider how our power is produced, is our power being produced by coal burning power plants of Utah, Wyoming, Arizona, or is our power produced by the Natural Gas burning power plants in Salt Lake or West Valley? Is the power in the wall from a Hydro Electric Power Plant or a Geo Thermal Plant. What about Solar or Wind Power, what is powering our homes and do we really care? We really care maybe once or twice a year, and that’s when the power is not present to keep us warm or cool. Rogers wrote “I’ve realized that my toxic emissions are not solely mine. Instead they are linked to a larger socioeconomic system that actually depends on pollution to maintain its well-being” (Rogers, 2010)Contribution.A $ 320,000.00 house that has three bedrooms, two baths, large kitchen and family room with high vaulted ceilings. This house was sold two years ago, and still it gets heated every day of winter and cooled every day of summer to make sure that the occupants are comfortable when we are home or worse while no one is in the house just to keep the temperature nice and ready for our arrival. How does one really reduce one’s own carbon footprint in this day and age. We know from the studies that our usages of the fossil fuels stream are the biggest contribution to the carbon dioxide emissions. With 40 percent of our emissions coming from our vehicle the simple actions that can be taken are that we live closer to work, to where we can walk, ride a bike and or use the public transportation systems. Housing costs were the next biggest area of emissions per house hold. Reduction of a foot print can be matched with a reduction of square footage in the homes to which we are currently living. Tiny homes currently have their own TV show now and with justification. By comparing a power bill on a house with excess of 2,500 square feet and a trailer dwellers home of 300 square feet. The large house power bill is at $86.00 (Kaibetoney, 2017), and the trailers power bill was 4.75 for the month of October 2017. Comparing the Gas bill for both, the 2,500 square foot homes gas bill was 125.00 (Kaibetoney, 2017), and the trailer dwellers bill 10.00 (5-gallons at 1.99 per gallon). Both costs were for the heating of the home and the water heater. Now the flip is the utilization of the fuel of a vehicle. The home owner has one vehicle and it is a Kia Sportage (Kaibetoney, 2017), getting gas mileage of 18-20 miles per gallon. Work distance is 20 miles. The Trailer Dweller drives a ? ton Diesel pickup getting a mileage of 15 miles to the gallon and lives 25 miles from the office. Not to state that one is more environmentally responsible than the other but this is still a factor that needs to be calculated in to an individual’s contribution to the global pollution. EthicsPurchasing the organic food that is grown locally, purchasing a vehicle that uses fossil fuel or no fossil fuel, riding a motor cycle, a bike or even walking to reduce your individual carbon emissions. These are simple individual measures a person can take to reduce one’s own carbon foot print. Moving from a large house to a tiny house, a smaller house or even regulating the power consumption that is consumed daily in the large house, is still a beginning to reducing the carbon foot print, but do we have the ethics to continue doing these simple measures?. Ethics is recognizing, acknowledging and acting to make a difference. Knowing that the United States is the number one contributor to the emissions of greenhouse gas, this alone should be a motivator to act. This is a global issue that will challenge the future generations everywhere on the planet, not just here in the USA but everywhere. So ethically what did our society do to contribute to the problem, what did we do to reduce the problem, what have we done to eliminate the problem or did we just consume regardless of the consequences?ResolutionIf the United States is the biggest contributor to the global warming, then we are the biggest consumer of the resources that are contributing the greenhouse gases. In the last 20 years we have seen substantial changes in the technologies sectors, the costs of solar panels coming down, more production of wind farms. The technology is available and yet we are reserved on taking the leap to convert to a cleaner power, reducing our energy usage and taking the personal responsibility. In our college there is recycle bins for recycling your cans, paper, waste and yet the trash cans are still mixed with items that are recyclable. Yet, we still don’t take the time to sort the trash at home and recycled items get sent to the landfills. In the eighties the price of gasoline was rocketing and much higher than diesel fuel. Many people went and bought diesel fuel vehicles to reduce the personal expense for fuel. Diesel fuel vehicles were being produced to serve the market. Prius came out with an electric car, we now have all different brands of electric vehicles for all different price ranges. These changes took place because of the potential to make a difference on the environment, or was it because of greater savings and the impact on personal expense. A common means to get motivation, direction and action toward issue in this country is to impact to the wallet. Either to provide greater benefits for conversions and to make using clean power cheaper than using dirty power. Clean power being non- greenhouse gas emitting and dirty power being generated by fossil fuels. To achieve this the cost of the dirty power must be elevated. When the clean air act come out and the requirements on the coal power plants was required to have higher efficient scrubbers installed on the gas streams to reduce the emissions of the greenhouse gases and to capture the carbon dioxides. This was one of the first actions that really started the American power company to start at looking at the renewable energy and started making real changes. The language of the American power industry is money, I believe it holds true for the American household consumer as well. The costs of consumption need’s to reflect the impact on the environment, and only then will the average American be motivated to make change. This research identifies that the bigger the house, the higher the usage on of natural resources. By increasing the costs for using the natural resources and energy the size of the home will be required to be reduced to actual needs verse the bigger the better. By reducing the square footage of a house to actual needs this will reduce the use of energy, reduce the use of natural resources and reduce impact on the environment. This change has to start with me, it has to start with you and it needs to start with all of us.PICTURESThe fall leaves have fallen, the wind has carried them away, and the first storm has finally rolled in and freezing cold on its way. The high pressure is setting in and now the fossil fuel and energy I consume is now going to make it hard and hazardous for any of us to be outside. Here is the pictures of our contribution. (Catino, 2015) Approx 5000sqft (Google Earth)Approx 300sqft (Iphone Picture)ReferencesCatino, E. (2015).Smog Lake City. Powder The Skier’s Magazine (picture)Cook, M. G (2011) The Zero-Carbon House. Ramsbury, Marlborough:The Crowood Press LTDReay, D. (1972). Climate Change begins at Home. New York: MacmillanRogers, H, (2010). Green Gone Wrong. New York: Simon & Schuster Kaibetoney, Heidi & Alex, 2017 Power and gas bill.Big n Tiny house Picture. 12/07/2017 Website: ................
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