Carbon Footprint

Those of you who know me know I've been pretty busy over the past year. One of the things we ( my family and I) did was reduce our Carbon Footprint from about 25 tons of CO2 per year (per person) to about 10 tons of CO2 per year. What is a Carbon Footprint, why is it important and how did I reduce it? Read on...

What is a Carbon Footprint?

A Carbon Footprint (CF) is a "measure of the amount of carbon dioxide or CO2 emitted through the combustion of fossil fuels...in the case of an individual or household, as part of their daily lives."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_footprint).

There are lots of sites that will calculate your carbon footprint - some analyze your lifestyle in excruciating detail, others give very general estimates. Some of the more detailed CF calculators estimate your electricity usage, personal habits, travel (business and personal), and housing type. Here's one from Al Gore's EXCELLENT "Climate Crisis" site.
(http://www.climatecrisis.net/takeaction/carboncalculator)

Why is this important?

"The average American generates about 15,000 pounds of carbon dioxide every year from personal transportation, home energy use and from the energy used to produce all of the products and services we consume."
(http://www.climatecrisis.net/takeaction/)

We all contribute to global warming every day - especially Americans. Look at the Global Greenhouse Gas (GHS) emissions bar chart below. Sorry it's not bigger, but it lists a bunch of countries and their Global GHG emissions. The US is at the bottom.

Source: Globalis: http://globalis.gvu.unu.edu/indicator.cfm?IndicatorID=196

Pretty compelling huh? And to those of you who say - well we have more people than many countries - you are right. But our per capita emissions are also among the highest in the world too.

So what do we do about it?

Well the easiest thing to do is to start at home.

We reduced our footprint by changing our car type from SUV to large station wagon, and reduced our commute by literally thousands of miles yearly. Both Ron and I now commute using public transporation, we live in an apartment, and use renewable energy when available and simple money saving conservation practices (turn our lights when not in room, keep heat and A/C at a low setting). We recycle when we can and buy local foods when its convenient.

The quickest and perhaps most difficult change YOU can make is to take responsibility for caring for the planet.

"You go into a community and they will vote 80 percent to 20 percent in favor of a tougher Clean Air Act, but if you ask them to devote 20 minutes a year to having their car emissions inspected, they will vote 80 to 20 against it. We are a long way in this country from taking individual responsibility for the environmental problem." ~William D. Ruckelshaus, former EPA administrator, New York Times, 30 November 1988

ACT...NOW... Your children's future depends on it.