The Carbon Footprint - Report Example

INTRODUCTION Carbon footprint is the hypothetical quantitative measure of greenhouse gases emitted as a byproduct of the activities of a person, family, organization, or corporation for the past time period, usually in a year, month or week. Greenhouse gases builds up in the atmosphere, and prevents the solar energy bouncing off from the land surface from escaping Earth. The trapped heat subsequently causes the melting of ice caps, the rise in sea levels, and vast climate changes. It is thus important to determine how much greenhouse gases we contribute through carbon footprint calculations, so that steps can be taken to reduce the emissions. The measurements are calculated based on a series of questions answered by the person or institution involved (Carbon Footprint Ltd, 2011; World Wildlife Fund, 2007). Briefly, the questionnaire allows the assessment of how much of the pre-determined emission factors are utilized by the institution. The methodology of such calculations is made by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) of the British government, which is used by Carbon Footprint Ltd. or the Environmental Protection Agency of the United States‘ Department of Energy, which has its own Carbon Footprint calculation program, and is used by Lexington Global Warming Action Coalition. This report enumerates the carbon footprint value of ’s family, as calculated using different web hosts of carbon footprint calculations. Means of reducing the carbon footprint is also suggested. Finally, the idea of purchasing carbon offsets is tackled in this writing. MY CARBON FOOTPRINT VALUE Table 1. Summary of Carbon footprint values, expressed as tons CO2,.as calculated using five different websites. Calculated using Carbon footprint value Based on Coolcalifornia.org 54 Housing, Transportation, Shopping Carbon Footprint 44.22 Housing, Transportation carbonfund.org 35.45 Housing, Transportation Lexington Global Warming Calculator 25.30 Housing, Transportation (cars only) Table 1 summarizes the carbon footprint value calculated using five different websites. The values vary from one another, with coolcalifornia.org obtaining the greatest value at 54 tons CO2, and United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) getting the lowest score of 15.61 tons CO2. The average of the calculated values is 34.92 tons CO2, with a standard deviation of 13.54. What could have caused these high variation in results? COMPARISON OF THE FIVE WEBSITES All of the calculators used the activities at home, specifically the use of appliances, for the estimation of carbon footprint. However, US EPA only takes note of the housing energy consumption, as opposed to the other five websites, which also added transportation as an emission factor. As stated by the Lexington Global Warming Action Coalition, assessment of the carbon footprint using household activities alone is the most basic way of calculating because necessary information can be easily obtained from electric bills. Aside from housing and transportation, coolcalifornia.org also reported greenhouse gas emissions from shopping, which most likely caused its resulting carbon footprint calculation to be the highest of the five. Meanwhile, differences in the values obtained by Carbon Footprint, carbonfund.org, and Lexington may be attributed to the differences by which they accounted housing and transportation emissions. Looking closer at the environmental costs of transportation, both carbonfund.org and Carbon Footprint found out that most of the family’s carbon footprint was from car use, which, according to calculations, releases 31.74 and 41.74 tons CO2 respectively (see Appendix). These differences should be taken into consideration. A standardized calculation of Carbon Footprint should be made, because it is a reflection of the countries’ concerted effort on saving the environment. COMPARISON WITH THE AVERAGE HOUSEHOLDS According to coolcalifornia.org, the carbon footprint of ‘s family were mostly caused by shopping expenditures. Briefly, shopping takes note of the greenhouse gas emissions during the processing of shopped goods such as chicken, meat, and grains. And because meat and chicken are inefficient sources of food energy that takes a lot of energy to prepare, it is not surprising why shopping contributed the greatest part of carbon footprint to shopping. According to coolcalifornia.org, compared to the average American household, ‘s family has a high carbon foot print value. This implies that the family emits greater amounts of greenhouse gases than what is usually emitted by a household in the same country. In addition, the website went as far as saying that an average family across the globe only uses 20% of what is currently being used by the family in question. Such statement is bold, however, because different countries have different means of providing electricity to its population. For example, the more advanced Japan uses a more efficient nuclear energy, while the Third World Philippines utilizes mostly geothermal energy. However, although the value is still in contention, the fact that an advanced country such as the United States emit more than what the rest of the world, which includes Third World countries, releases in the atmosphere, may have already been established. The greater gross income has allowed richer countries to consume more than poorer countries do. The resulting advancements in agriculture, manufacturing, and electronics have increased the number of means by which energy is consumed and greenhouse gases are released. Unfortunately, such discrepancy in the amount of greenhouse gases produce does not translate to a discrepancy on the amount of effects these countries are facing. No one is safe from the effects of global warming directly resulting from the increase in the amount of greenhouse gases. Moreover, Third World countries are less equipped to battle against environmental disasters such as tsunamis and erosion, believed to be manifestations of greenhouse gases’ deleterious effects. In the poorer countries, where houses are built beside rivers, waste management techniques are not state-of-the-art, and disaster preparedness takes the back seat in favor of providing the basic needs of the population, environmental degradation is much more magnified. LOWERING CARBON FOOTPRINTS Since the recognition that the amount of yearly greenhouse gases emitted per annum cannot be sustained in a long period of time, efforts on decreasing the amount of greenhouse gas emissions have been made. An important step is the calculation of carbon footprint that allows proper assessment of energy-consuming activities. Second is changes in the magnitude of everyday energy-consuming activities are being recommended by experts. Basically, turning off electrical equipment when not in use decreases greenhouse gas emissions significantly. In addition, decreasing the number of times home, air conditioner and water heater thermostat are used can reduce emissions with at least 10% of the initial total emissions. Changing 60 watt light bulbs into Compact Fluorescent Lightbulbs (CFLs) will result to 65 fewer pounds of CO2 emitted per bulb (Lexington Global Warming Action Coalition). Enabling the sleep feature of personal computers and laptops, washing clothes with cold rather than hot water, using clothesline to dry clothes instead of an electronic dryer, using Energy Star appliances, and recycling paper, plastics, and metal, greatly reduce energy consumption, and result to dollar savings (Environmental Protection Agency). However, because most of the emission of ‘s family came from transportation, specifically through the use of cars, reduction of activity should be targeted on this aspect. A vehicle with more mileage uses energy more efficiently (Lexington Global Warming Action Coalition). The family can opt to change their vehicle, if resources permit. Still, much more significant reduction in greenhouse gas emission can be achieved if a shift in a more efficient generation of power is adopted, because interestingly, the biggest source of emission is the inefficient production and transmission of electricity. Of course, such move does not interest much because of the amount of investment needed to make the change. CARBON OFFSETS Carbon offsetting is another option in lowering greenhouse gas emissions. Its concept is to compensate own emission by funding the reduction of the same amount of emission elsewhere. In essence the emission is neutralized (Carbon Footprint, Ltd., 2011). Carbon Footprint, Ltd. offers its clients the option to sponsor carbon reducing projects such as the wind power project in India, and reforestation in Kenya, United States and United Kingdom. Carbon offsets are a much more efficient way of battling greenhouse gases because it concerts the efforts of individual households in support of a large carbon reduction project. Such move is faster and more cost-efficient, than for the individual households to do their own projects of carbon reduction. References Carbon Fooprint, Ltd. “Home of Carbon Management.” (2011). Date accessed: May 02, 2011. Available at: http://www.carbonfootprint.com/ Carbonfund Organization. “Fight Global Warming Today.“ (2011). Date accessed: May 02, 2011. Available at : www.carbonfund.org Lexington Global Warming Action Coalition. (2011). Date accessed: May 02, 2011. Available at: http://www.lexgwac.org/ Environmental Protection Agency. (2011). Date accessed: May 02, 2011. Available at: http://www.epa.gov/ . Read More