You Think It’s Warm Now?

By Nestor Valencia

Global warming is real and it is going to get warmer-alot warmer in the next decades. It is a serious problem that many people are talking about and the facts are staggering.

There are 1.1 billion cars, trucks, and buses operating on the planet today according to Wikipedia. Every year vehicles emit 1.73 billion metric tons (equivalent to 304 trillion pounds) of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

That’s equal to burning all the coal in a fully loaded coal train that stretches 304,000 miles, long enough to wrap 12 times around the world. And that’s just the pollution from the 1.1 billion automobiles in just one year, not including pollution from other sources such as airplanes and factories.

And the heat is going to go up. Just eight years ago, in 2004, earth had only 700 million cars. Today’s 1.1 billion vehicles represent an increase of 57 percent.

Compared to other countries, the U.S. has the most number of vehicles, over 250,000,000, with a ratio of about 769 cars per 1,000 people. But China, the fastest growing large economy, is expected to overtake the USA as the largest automobile market on the planet within the next decade. In 2011, a total of 80 million cars were built worldwide, led by China with 18.4 million, the US built 8.6 million, and Japan 8.3 million units.

And something has to move these vehicles. According to the International Energy Agency, today the world produces approximately 90 million barrels of oil per day to keep up the present demand. Multiply the daily barrel needs by 365 days. The total is 32,850,000,000 billion barrels per year. Each barrel contains about 42 gallons of fuel.

Investor Center states that by 2035, it is estimated that the world will need 390 million barrels of oil, per day.

To add to the world pollution problem, the vehicles now on the road discard 2.2 billion tires each year. Tires consume over half of the earth’s rubber production, which, of course, burns more fuel.

In the next five years, almost half of the global oil demand will come from China. China and India will team up to soak up most of the world’s oil production until 2035. But the year 2035 is simply a benchmark. Demand will continue for many years beyond.

Global warming is a reality. Today the world population stands at about 7.2 billion people. It is time for every person to take responsibility and begin to reverse the death of our planet and our existence.