Since CO2 emissions from factories are a major contributor to global warming, then would buying products made from your home country reduce the amount of carbon footprints and or emission? If we were to buy products that is made in foreign countries, the shipping would only add to the carbon that is being released . So would buying products made in your home country help reduce CO2 in a way?

great question. yes, in general, but it depends on a lot of things.

for example, if the “other country” used wind power for electricity and your country used coal, and if the product were shipped by sea, then I would say that the product produced in the other country and shipped to you would be actually less carbon intensive.

So you need to actually know a lot of details to answer that question accurately!

Good question. Though I know why we buy from other countries I think we should make more here in the us. I mean we want to trade with places like China but what do we have to offer?

I do agree that carbon emissions are one of the main contributors to global warming. But I do not agree that the production of an item is the bigger issue. It is transporting that product to stores that releases more carbon thus leading to global warming. In an article from EPA they state that industry emissions are only 14% of the problem. Yet, transportation contributes 34% to global warming.

Also, I agree that shipping adds to the overall amount of carbon released. The less distance traveled to deliver an item the less emissions are put into the environment. If an item is made locally ,then transporting it to stores would be a lesser distance than if it was made in another country. Therefore, it would indeed be more effective to buy locally made products.

Julia I think that you may be mixing up two things. The EPA statistics are probably stating that all transportation combined produces more carbon emissions than all industry combined. But that transportation value is much more than transporting goods and products. It's also everybody driving their cars and taking airplanes, for example.

In general, I think more energy is used during production than transport, but it depends on the example. For example, producing milk is much more carbon intensive than transporting it. But flowers sent by airplane from africa so people can have flowers in the wintertime is an example where the transportation part is bigger than the production in terms of energy