One piece of my research is about environmental impacts of consumer choices. Specifically, the energy use and related CO2 emissions caused by US household consumption activities. You may find my paper titled "Consumer lifestyle approach to US energy use and the related CO2 emissions" in Energy Policy Volume 33, Issue 2 , January 2005, Pages 197-208. In this paper, I try to portray the role of consumers in the total US energy use and CO2 emissions.
You may find other related papers in its reference section. Shui Bin -----Original Message----- From: Ecological Society of America: grants, jobs, news [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Wendee Holtcamp Sent: Tuesday, March 20, 2007 3:59 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Consumer Choice & the Environment Interestingly about littering... a lot of otherwise non-litterers throw out orange peels, bananas, and other biodegradeable things. However in reality... this attracts wildlife to the roadside to eat said food items, increasing roadkill which not only kills wildlife but puts human lives in danger! Something to think about. I heard of this logic from the infamous Dr Splatt, a high school teacher who does "roadkill science" with his students (http://roadkill.edutel.com/). They go out and monitor roadkill and correlate it with various factors. The above was based on one students's study years ago showing an association between roadkill and litter. I thought that was interesting and now I tell everyone that likes to throw food out the window! Abut the book - the thing that struck me was that something like 64-87% of all environmental impacts (air and water pollution, land alteration and global warming) were caused by 3 conglomerated categories - transportation, home operations (energy, AC/heating, etc), and food. The rest were all relatively small in comparison. So the driving we do, the type of car we drive, the energy (green) and energy efficiency of appliances and the food choices we make were presumably the most important. Wendee ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Wendee Holtcamp, M.S. Wildlife Ecology Freelance Writer-Photographer http://www.wendeeholtcamp.com Bohemian Adventures Blog http://bohemianadventures.blogspot.com ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ CRIKEY! I do think that sometimes people get really upset at things that don't really matter when you look at the big picture. For example, sometimes when I am driving down the highway and I am finished with my pop, I throw the can out the window on to the side of the highway. I realize that this is really rude, and it probably upsets a lot of people, but does it reallly have any environmental impact at all, relatively speaking? I am of course joking... (SNIP)
