Watching politicians wrestle on TV with ‘what is climate change?’. Though, people clearly feel the harmful impact. A need for sensible, sustainable solutions. We stand at a climate change tipping point. Learning how to reduce carbon footprint is increasingly important. Our planet is getting hotter, storms more severe, animals, agriculture endangered. In 2019-20, we witnessed record-breaking floods, melting glaciers, devastating hurricanes, brutally intense heat waves.
Basic search for solutions leads to key questions – what is carbon footprint? How can we reduce? Calculating carbon footprint is a way of measuring the mark an event, organization, person, product leaves on environment. Scientists define it as a measure of total amount of carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) emission’s of a defined population, system, activity, considering all relevant sources, sinks, storage.
When we drive a car, can’t just measure carbon emission’s of burning oil, gas. Have to consider energy to extract fossil fuels from ground, pollution by refining, transporting, C02 of making car!
From food we eat to phones, everything has carbon footprint. In simple terms, carbon footprint is a way of figuring negative impact our action’s bring. Worst offender is mass-produced meat. Keeps animal’s in factory farms with horrendous treatment. Forced into ridiculously close quarters, animals are prone to disease.
Eat local meat, fruits. Cultivate a home herb, vegetable garden? Encourage an economy with less food miles, less energy-devouring production, less deforestation. Do we have to rip mountains, pollute rivers? Amount of garbage, inevitable land-fills release greenhouse gases. Packaging, shipping of new products?
Recycling, re-purposing, composting waste helps. Catch a bus, subway ride, fuel-efficient vehicles, travel responsibly, stay in eco hotels, favour responsible tour companies.
Aviation accounts for 3% of global greenhouse gas emissions. 4.3 billion people traveled in 2018, up 38 million over 2017. Demand for jet fuel rose by 5% when we’re desperate to reduce greenhouse gas emissions! Slow travel on train?
When tap water flows effortlessly, remember urgent water crisis. Buy low-flow taps, toilets, choosing water-efficient appliances for conservation. Flicking light switches, plugging in laptops, instant power? Electricity is a rare luxury! Switching to efficient LED light bulbs saves energy.
Affordable renewable energy – solar, wind power for home, better insulation. Heating, cooling home’s accounts for 50% of energy. Wear appropriate clothes for climate!
A few ecological footprint calculators to try – Global Footprint Network, Terrapass, CarbonFootprint.com, EPA, The Nature Conservancy, Carbon Fund, WWF, Ecological Footprint, Earth Day, Conservation International.
Many of these calculators help us figure out how to counteract carbon footprint with carbon offsets.