What are you doing to reduce your carbon footprint?
Changed out the lights to CFLs, even a couple of the new LED units. --Minimal use of AC, wood heat. (Yes, burning the wood releases carbon--but it would have been released anyway as the wood decays, and possibly some of it as methane, which is a more potent GHG.)--Got more economical cars.
Try to plan trips for gas efficiency. --Cut down meat (meat is about 10x more energy-intensive than vegetable foods.)--(Almost) always use reusable shopping bags rather than throwaway plastic ones. --Got an electric mower to replace the gas one (though I kept the gas one as backup--and since at least some of our regional generation capacity is coal-fired, I'm not sure the electric is actually better, carbon-wise.
Though it COULD be, if we cleaned up electric generation.)--Trying to come up with a plan to eat more locally.
My biggest task has been in reducing my electricity usage, I have been able to get my monthly Kwh from an average of 800 down to mid-300's every month. This has been done by making sure all air-leaks had been sealed, adjusting my thermostat on my furnace, every lightbulb is a CFL, I even got rid of some light fixtures that weren't 100% needed. All my electronics are on surge protecters which get turned off every night, when I leave home, and when I will be away from the room for more then a few minutes.
I compost almost everything, from paper to dryer lint and hair. This keeps most everything from the landfill. I grow a lot of my own vegetables, what I don't have I buy locally from organic growers.
I no longer commute to work, by working from home I have saved 60 miles per week round trip. When I painted my house last I only used natural paint, so there was almost no Voc'sI recycle everything I can, unfortunatly my community doesn't accept a wide variety. These are the biggest ways I try to reduce my footprint, if you want anything else please let me knowPaul Kohler.
Your carbon footprint is the sum of all emissions of CO2 (carbon dioxide), which were induced by your activities in a given time frame. Usually a carbon footprint is calculated for the time period of a year. The best way is to calculate the carbon dioxide emissions based on the fuel consumption.
In the next step you can add the CO2 emission to your carbon footprint. For each (UK-) gallon of petrol fuel consumed, 10.4 kg carbon dioxide (CO2) is emitted. For each (US-) gallon of gasoline fuel consumed, 8.7 kg carbon dioxide (CO2) is emitted.
If your car consumes 7.5 liter diesel per 100 km, then a drive of 300 km distance consumes 3 x 7.5 = 22.5 liter diesel, which adds 22.5 x 2.7 kg = 60.75 kg CO2 to your personal carbon footprint. Fly with a plane a distance of 2.2 km or 1.375 miles. To calculate the above contributions to the carbon footprint, the current UK mix for electricity and trains was taken into account.
Carbon dioxide is a so called greenhouse gas causing global warming . Other greenhouse gases which might be emitted as a result of your activities are e.g. Methane and ozone. These greenhouse gases are normally also taken into account for the carbon footprint.
They are converted into the amount of CO2 that would cause the same effects on global warming (this is called equivalent CO2 amount). Few people express their carbon footprint in kg carbon rather than kg carbon dioxide. You can always convert kg carbon dioxide in kg carbon by multiplying with a factor 0.27 (1'000 kg CO2 equals 270 kg carbon).
See my comment to the article about personal responsibility for global warming . The carbon footprint is a very powerful tool to understand the impact of personal behaviour on global warming. Most people are shocked when they see the amount of CO2 their activities create!
If you personally want to contribute to stop global warming, the calculation and constant monitoring of your personal carbon footprint is essential. For registered users, there is a carbon footprint calculator on this website, which allows to store individual activities like, e.g. Travelling by car, train, bus or air plane, fuel consumptions, electricity bills and so on (we call the individual contributions "carbon stamps"). You can then see the amount of CO2 created for each individual activity.
You can do this either in advance and use it as a help for decisions or afterwards to continually sum up your carbon dioxide emissions. Klick here to see a sample carbon footprint with some activities. An off-line carbon footprint and primary energy consumption calculator (Excel sheet) is already available in the download section.
There are graphs available on this site for the CO2 emissions per capita by country (average carbon footprint by country). In the medium- and long term, the carbon footprint must be reduced to less than 2'000 kg CO2 per year and per person. This is the maximum allowance for a sustainable living .
I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.
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