It has also shaped how we interact with each other. By not paying the true cost of our choice, we have become grossly dependent on an expensive, polluting, socially alienating way of living. Motor vehicle ownership and CO 2 emissions. The number of motor vehicles has been growing faster than the population, and the resulting increase in CO 2 emissions is contributing to air pollution and global warming. The graph shows that we now have one vehicle for every man, woman and child in the county.
Vehicles actually outnumber licensed drivers.
Two railroad cars can carry as many people as 16 lanes of highway. In Washington State, gasoline combustion is the largest contributor of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. Annually, Thurston County vehicles generate 900,000 tons of CO 2 .