The word put out on the street, so to speak, in the UK: It is better for health to go on walks rather than runs… Hum building a theory here on CO2 output from humans…
“The average person exhales approximately 2.3 pounds of CO2 per day.”[1]
I understand that figure is with minimum exercise from looking at their calculator on the 8billontrees.com site (see [1] below). (2.3 pounds in kg is 1.04326 kg).
According to Worldometer on a Google search, there are 7.888 billion people alive on Earth at present. (July 2023)
7.888 billion x 1.04326 kg = 8.229 (3dp) billion kg (or 8 million metric tonnes PER DAY) in just breathing air in and a percentage of CO2 out.
“In 2019, humans emitted more than 35 billion tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels. It can be difficult to picture a “ton” of a gas like CO2, […].“[2]
So in 2019, 95 million (not sure if it is metric tonnes or US or UK ton???) of CO2 and other gases per day from burning right?
4.7 million metric tonnes of fart per day based on 1.2 litres per day worldwide (based on the density of methane, but there is a mix of gases not just methane).[3]
Summary Calcs
8.2 + 4.7 = 12.9 million metric tonnes of gases from humans (total world population per day) (not including anything else i.e. motor cars).
12.9 * 365 = 4.708 billion tonnes of gases per year for the total population on Earth breathing and farting (don’t get me wrong this is a very loose calculation and most likely got it a bit wrong somewhere). In any case, kiss goodbye to ‘carbon neutral’, another government blunder.
References
[1, How Much CO2 Do Humans Produce? Human CO2 Exhale Calculator,by Georgette Kilgore for 8billiontrees.com, accessed 26/07/2023]
[2, https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/how-much-ton-carbon-dioxide, accessed 26th July 2023]
[3, Ten facts about why we fart, https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/321866, accessed 26th July 2023
Side Notes
JUST A SIDE ISSUE HOW MANY HUMANS CAN YOU HAVE BEFORE THERE’S NOT ENOUGH BREATHABLE AIR? Here is an article about that: https://www.greenlineprint.com/blog/is-there-enough-oxygen-for-a-growing-population (Be aware that trees are not the only oxygen-generating plant life.)
I could take my thoughs into a more scentific approach but I probably need more oxygen. 🙂
This is all about humans and does not include all animal life or the natural recycling of gases via plants etc…
