Kerosine Billions
May 22, 2011
Dr. Andrew Dannenberg investigated that if the weight of every US citizens increases with 10 pounds, airtravel in the USA alone will use well over 1.3 billion liters of extra kerosine. That’s a lot of fuel and extra CO2, and that’s just in America. If we get taller, we get heavier. Every 20% increase in height means a 73% increase in weight but Dannenbergs research shows that even if we grow much less than 20 % the costs are very high. The energy bill attached to our irrational love for tallness is hefty. Not to speak of the costs for the environment.
On the other hand, if we decided to shrink our energy use will shrink even more. At our projected 50 centimeters we’d only need 2% to 3% of the energy we consume now. That actually means that most countries today would’ve already acomplished the now utopian target of 100% renewable energy. We’d shrink towards our targets and not grow away from it.