Eye opening
While checking out a post on TAPPED, i came across this claim:
figuring that there's close to 300 million cars in the US, i didn't see how that number could possibly be accurate.
Turns out it's not, but it's not that far off, either. Obviously some of the numbers have changed in the past few years, but around 45% of the world's automobiles live in the US.
That equates to offsetting the emissions of roughly 300 million cars, all the cars in the world, for 20 years.
figuring that there's close to 300 million cars in the US, i didn't see how that number could possibly be accurate.
Turns out it's not, but it's not that far off, either. Obviously some of the numbers have changed in the past few years, but around 45% of the world's automobiles live in the US.
Labels: cars
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2 Comments:
I don't know. I think you're right to question the number. If the U.S. has 45% of the cars and there are 231 million cars here, that means world-wide there must be 500 million cars. Underestimating the number of cars by 200 million seems like a big deal. To me that makes their other numbers suspect. Still an interesting idea, though. I'm all for not bringing the planet to the boiling point.
By
Rob E., at 2:15 PM
My back of the napkin calculations from that map came up with about 370 million cars in the rest of the world. Some of those numbers (Brazil, China & India, especially) are a decade or so old, so add at minimum 10% to the total. Bureau of Transportation Statistics puts the US figure at roughly 256 million in 2008, a number which grew by about 1.5%/year regularly over the past 30 years. Figure it's at 260 million now.
Which makes the US total more like 40%, but still. The number i'm more used to hearing is the 5% of the world's population, 25% of the world's energy usage relating to the US. We're the only country that comes close to a 1:1 ratio between cars and people.
By
Barry, at 2:32 PM
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