Question 5.37

7. Burning fuels in power plants or motor vehicles emits carbon dioxide (CO2), which contributes to global warming. Table 5.12 displays CO2 emissions per person from 48 countries with populations of at least 20 million.

  1. Why do you think we choose to measure emissions per person rather than total CO2 emissions for each country?
  2. Display the data of Table 5.12 in a histogram. Describe the shape, center, and variability of the distribution. Which countries appear to be outliers?

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Table 5.30: Table 5.12 Carbon Dioxide Emissions, Metric Tons per Person
Country CO2 Country CO2 Country CO2 Country CO2
Algeria 2.3 Germany 10.0 Myanmar 0.2 South Korea 8.8
Argentina 3.9 Ghana 0.2 Nepal 0.1 Spain 6.8
Australia 17.0 India 0.9 Nigeria 0.3 Sudan 0.2
Bangladesh 0.2 Indonesia 1.2 North Korea 9.7 Tanzania 0.1
Brazil 1.8 Iran 3.8 Pakistan 0.7 Thailand 2.5
Canada 16.0 Iraq 3.6 Peru 0.8 Turkey 2.8
China 2.5 Italy 7.3 Philippines 0.9 Ukraine 7.6
Colombia 1.4 Japan 9.1 Poland 8.0 United Kingdom 9.0
Congo 0.0 Kenya 0.3 Romania 3.9 United States 19.9
Egypt 1.7 Malaysia 4.6 Russia 10.2 Uzbekistan 4.8
Ethiopia 0.0 Mexico 3.7 Saudi Arabia 11.0 Venezuela 5.1
France 6.1 Morocco 1.0 South Africa 8.1 Vietnam 0.5

7.

(a) Big countries (in terms of population) would always top the list if total emissions were used, even if they had low emissions for their size. However, that would not provide a measure of the energy consumption per person.

(b) Using class widths of 2 metric tons per person, we have the following:

image

The distribution is skewed to the right. There appear to be three high outliers: Canada, Australia, and the United States.