eli5 how much pollution does a cargo ship produce yearly compared to an average human?
In: Technology
This is hard to measure, because humans overall produce waste in many various forms, some of which we do our utmost to “clean/remove” and others we just let be waste (landfill, unchecked runoff to the atmosphere or into ground/water)
If you want to get a basic understanding, the move would be to look at “carbon footprint” to get some estimates. You can do that for the average bulk carrier cargo ship, and you can do that for the average citizen of whichever country.
Per google for Cargo Ship: “bulk carriers contribute a total of 440 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions each year” so let’s keep that number.
Per google for “Average American” per year: “The average American carbon footprint is estimated to be around **16 tons per year**. However, it is important to note that the average American carbon footprint is bound to vary depending on the state – seeing as major factors such as diet and transportation differ vastly across the United States.”
So 16/440,000,000 gets you your % of Average US citizen to 1 cargo for the year. It’s extremely small in comparison.
However, now you can multiply those numbers by the number of US citizens, and number of cargo vessels. Or you can try to look for the average human on Earth, and multiply that by the number of humans on Earth to get a global number. The global average is likely less than the US average, I’d assume? As many nations are less built up than US society. Obviously Average American and Average Human are different things. The above is just to get you started on your research.
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