Keeping Score On Climate: How We Measure Greenhouse Gases

Short Wave

NPR

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4.7 • 6K Ratings

🗓️ 20 July 2022

⏱️ 15 minutes

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Summary

Host Emily Kwong wants to keep an eye on her carbon footprint. Most of it consists of greenhouse gas emissions from driving her car or buying meat at the grocery store. But it's not so obvious how to measure those emissions, or how factories, cargo ships, or even whole countries measure theirs.

Enter: NPR science reporter Rebecca Hersher. Together, Rebecca and Emily break down how greenhouse gas emissions are tallied ... and why those measurements are so important in figuring out who's responsible for cleaning up.

What should we measure next? Email the show at [email protected].

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to shortwave from NPR.
0:04.6	Hey Emily.
0:06.6	Hey Rebecca Hersher.
0:07.8	How do you get around?
0:09.3	Like do you drive, take the bus, walk?
0:12.0	I run.
0:13.0	I run everywhere.
0:14.0	Up and down streets all around DC.
0:16.2	Sure, sure.
0:17.2	Yes, you're in amazing shape.
0:18.9	You run everywhere.
0:19.9	No, no, no, I'm really not.
0:21.6	It's not even humanly possible to run everywhere I'd like to, so I usually Metro.
0:26.0	I take a lot of public transit.
0:27.9	Sometimes I drive.
0:28.9	Especially when I come to visit you and say hello.
0:32.0	What do you do?
0:33.0	I like to bike, but if I'm being honest, I also drive a lot.
0:36.8	And I have a gas car, so I think about climate change a lot when I do that.
0:40.4	But you know, that's how you get around.
0:42.4	But when you drive, because you do drive sometimes, do you ever wonder, like, how much carbon
0:46.6	dioxide is this car releasing?
	...

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