Climate Change Calculator

Is global warming really caused by human activity? Use the calculator below and take your own conclusions!

Calculator based on the excellent article by Thomas Murphy: Recipe for Climate Change.

CO2

CO2 Intensity per Fossil Fuel Source

The three main sources of human CO2 atmospheric emissions and their associated intensities, i.e., how much CO2 each emits to the atmosphere per unit of energy produced:

Source Reaction CO2 intensity
Coal C (1 g) + O2 (2.7 g) → CO2 ( g) + kcal g/kcal
Natural gas CH4 (1 g) + 2O2 (4 g) → 2H2O (2.25 g) + CO2 ( g) + kcal g/kcal
Gasoline C8H18 (1 g) + 12.5O2 (3.51 g) → 9H2O (1.42 g) + 8CO2 ( g) + kcal g/kcal

This is important so we can later correlate each energy source with world's current power production (see next section).

  • Find other sources that confirm these data
  • What's the difference between gasoline and oil as far as energy production goes?

Total Amount of Annual CO2 Emissions

Here we find out how much CO2 is released to the atmosphere due to human activities.

We start by stating how much energy is produced yearly by our civilization:

PWh
Then we specify how much each fossil fuel source contributes to the annual production:
Source Share Power (PWh) CO2 amount (Pg)
% X PWh Y Pg
% X PWh Y Pg
% X PWh Y Pg
And thus:
Total amount of CO2 emitted: ×1012 kg
  • Add animated percentage bars next to each source