When you start adding up the numbers, you can see how it starts to be a problem. So let’s just look at a few simple stats that can help us better understand the U.S. carbon footprint which will start to explain why so many states are adopting renewable portfolio standards and setting very steep renewable energy goals. 

1 person, through breathing, emits about two tons of CO2 emissions in a single year. In an earlier article, we mentioned that it takes about 6 trees to recycle that much CO2 and turn it back into oxygen. Not so bad. 

But we now need to factor in other factors that produce way more CO2 than humans and at a much faster rate. One of the biggest offenders being plants that burn coal and fossil fuels to make energy. 

Out of all the countries in the world, current data to hand shows that the United States is the world leader in terms of carbon dioxide – AKA CO2 – emissions from electrical production, emitting 2.79 billion tons, followed by China at 2.66 billion tons and Russia a distant third at 661 million tons. If you’re interested to see how much CO2 emissions your local or a nearby coal plant produces, here is an online database of most coal plants and how much pollution they create.

Let’s take that figure, 2.79 billion tons, ITS A LOT! That means U.S plants that burn coal and fossil fuels to make electricity produce the same amount of bad emissions as 1,400,000 humans do in a year. 

Add to that, other sources of CO2 emissions like live stock that create 14% of all the U.S. CO2 emissions and you start to see the problem.