Infographic: This Is What’s Causing Climate Change
Wow, maybe we should stop cutting down so many trees.
If you tried to list the biggest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions, you might say cars, or cows, or airplanes. Those are all major problem sources, but they’re not the only ones, or even necessarily the biggest ones.
Ecofys, a sort of sustainable energy consultancy firm, put together this infographic showing exactly where the greenhouse gases are coming from. It’s broken down into two categories first: emissions from burning fossil fuels (which amounts to 65 percent of the total) and all other emissions, like gassy cows. Greenhouse gases from fossil fuel burning are further broken down into type (coal, oil, natural gas) and then even further to specifics like cars, airplanes, and industries like paper or iron production.
Cars are, predictably, the biggest individual contributor. But the next biggest? Deforestation. Chopping down forests doesn’t just make our land less pretty or put plant and animal species at risk: it reduces the planet’s natural ability to filter out our garbage in the air.
Check out the full infographic here (warning: large PDF).
[via Motherboard]