In cities across the globe, the personal automobile is the single greatest polluter, as emissions from a billion vehicles on the road add up to a planet-wide problem. Driving a private car is a typical citizen's most air polluting activity. The negative effects of automotive emissions are maximum when you sit in traffic surrounded by cars, their engines idling. Everyone sitting in a traffic jam is getting poisoned.
Greenhouse gases are carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). These gases act like the glass covering a greenhouse, letting sunlight in but blocking some of the infrared radiation from the earth's surface that carries heat back into space. The gases act like a blanket wherever their concentration increases. Local concentrations increase local heat and increased differences between hotter and colder regions drives weather events into more extreme ranges. Over many years, the total amount of greenhouse gases accumulates and the average temperature of the whole planet is increasing. The planet's thermostat had been set at a pleasant average temperature of 59 degrees (F) for the last 10 thousand years or so and is now rising.
In our view, the main concern should be the effect of heat retention on local climates right now. It is possible to imagine increasingly anomalous weather and increasing loss of life and property from greenhouse gas accumulation with little or no change in the average temperature of the planet, although, we do expect slow progressive increase in average temperatures.
How does buying a car that gets good gas mileage might reduce the amount of carbon dioxide that is added to the atmosphere?
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(From nutramed . com)
If you buy a fuel efficient car you will need less fuel to travel to places. Fewer fuel use means less carbon monoxide/dioxide discharge to the atmosphere.
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