Blog Action Day 2009: one small act

The burning of tobacco in cigars, cigarettes, pipes, and other forms accounts for .0000032% of carbon dioxide emissions worldwide.


I am zeroing in on smoking's contribution to global warming for Blog Action Day :D People react everytime i tell them to stop smoking not only for their health but also for the environment... i would always get the usual response that one cigarette contributes very very minimal CO2... small amount for one cigarette but considering the number of smokers and how many sticks they can consume per day... that's still a lot...

------------------

A lot of people don't realize that the tobacco industry causes a lot of damage to the environment. From growing tobacco plants to disposal of butts and packaging, the life cycle of a cigarette creates a lot of pollution. Tobacco causes environmental damage where it is used as well as where it is produced. Burning tobacco is the main source of indoor air pollution in the developed world. Tobacco smoke contains about 4,000 chemicals, including 50 that are known to cause cancer.
• Around 2.6billion tons of CO2 is emitted from cigarettes every year,
• On average, a tree is cut down for every 300 cigarettes (about a two-week supply for a pack-a-day smoker).
• A cigarette-manufacturing machine uses four miles of paper per hour to roll and package cigarettes.
• Tobacco cultivation involves a great deal of pesticides, which are used in the early stages of tobacco growth. Pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers poison farm workers, seep into the soil and pollute waterways and ecological systems, and poison livestock and food crops. In many poorer countries where food is already in short supply, tobacco companies encourage local farmers to grow tobacco instead of food. Sometimes this results in even less food being available for people.
• Cigarette butts eventually end up in rivers, lakes and the ocean from city streets and through storm drains. Animals, birds and fish eat them by mistake and they are harmed. Cigarette butts take an average of 25 years to decompose. It is estimated that several trillion-cigarette butts are littered worldwide each year.

-----------------

Typhoon Ondoy and Pepeng are just too recent and too powerful for us Filipinos to be reminded of the huge impact of climate change in our lives... In less than a month these 2 typhoons lashed Luzon (Philippines) with too much devastation than we could ever imagine...

let's start doing our own share against climate change...