Where is all that CO2 going from all the soft drinks, sodas, and beers?
Funny question, but really an important and a “put-to-thinking” one. According to a report on Statista (2016) around 4.93 billion liters of carbonated soft drinks and 5.4 billion liters of beer were consumed in India. And after a small session of calculations, I found out that 221.26 tonnes of CO2 from soft drinks and 1674 tonnes of CO2 from beers are present in those stated amounts of drinks. What do you suppose happened to all that carbon dioxide consumed? It was ultimately unleashed into the atmosphere through respiration or eructation – breathing and belching – to be spoken in simple terms.
Wow! That is one hell of a burp if collectively seen, and that’s not even considering the choir of congruent or incongruent belches from all over the world. Now as we all are aware carbon dioxide is one of the most notorious greenhouse gases that is acknowledged to change the average temperature of the earth. The greenhouse effect is a natural process that warms the Earth when gases in Earth’s atmosphere trap the Sun’s energy. The absorbed energy warms the atmosphere and the surface of the Earth. Greenhouse gases include water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, ozone, and some artificial chemicals such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). This trapped heat is what is causing Global warming which increases the risk of more frequent—and heavier—rainfall, snowfall, and other precipitation. And as that risk increases, so too does the risk of flooding, to state the minimum. Today there is very little doubt that carbon dioxide and other gases produced by human activities are inching up the world’s thermostat.
So should we all stop drinking soda and beer for fear of belching more CO2 into the atmosphere? Luckily, no. According to worldometer data analysis (2016) the figure available to us i.e. 1895.26 tonnes of beverage inspired carbon dioxide emissions, in 2016, amounts to only 0.00007% of the amount of the same gas that was belched into the Indian atmosphere by gasoline – and diesel – burning vehicles. Our devouring of carbonated beverages, then, is just a mere burp in a bucket compared with our intake of gasoline. So by all rights keep on drinking, but don’t ride. You are the worst if you do both, together or anyways.
