Carbon Footprinting

Carbon footprint is defined as the total amount of greenhouse gases produced to directly and indirectly support human activities, and it is usually expressed in equivalent tons of CO2. A person’s carbon footprint is calculate by taking into account the state you live in, the number of people in the household, make/model/year of car, how many miles driven every day, flight takes per year and the distance of the flights, average monthly electric bill, natural gas bill, percent of electricity from clean, renewable sources, and the size of house/apartment. There are many websites that a person can go to calculate their own carbon footprint. The gases that are produced by the burning of fossil fuels for everyday living such as heating and electricity is what produce the CO2. CO2 emissions are the leading cause for global warming in the world. This rapid consumption that produces CO2 is reeking havoc on the world. Global warming in itself is the biggest problem due to these high levels of CO2. However, in addition to global warming there are other environmental problems associated with high levels of CO2. The water supply and pollution of the water is a big problem along with solid, toxic, and radioactive wastes. Land degradation such as desertification and deforestation, declining biodiversity, air pollution, climate change, heavy pesticide and other chemical use, and high energy consumption all contribute to the damage that is being done to the environment. Every human on this planet contributes to the damage that is being done. A person’s carbon footprint essentially measures the damage that a person is doing to the planet. I decided to measure my carbon footprint using the calculator on www.climatecrisis.net/takeaction/carboncalculator/. My total was 7.05 which the website told me was average. The national average given on this website was 7.5, so I feel like my number is okay. I thought that it would be a lot higher because I drive a SUV, fly a lot, and don’t recycle (bad I know!). So I was a little surprised that mine was considered “average”. I feel like taking into consideration that I know all the things I do/don’t do that are bad for the environment and then that my carbon footprint was labeled as average, that just maybe this level is really too high in retrospect, and should not be considered average? This website also gave data on CO2 emissions for countries in 2002. The CO2 emissions were labeled in million tons and they were as follows:
1. United States 5773
2. China 3783
3. Russia 1534
4. Japan 1213
5. India 1106
These are the top five countries with the highest emissions in the 2002. The lowest country was Iceland with 2. However, the data for 2006 was 12 to 15 % higher for each of these countries. I was a little shocked at which countries fell into the top five. I really did not think that Japan would be fourth. I thought that it would be second or third at least. I also was very shocked that the UK was not in the top five. However, in the text I found a chart that listed the energy consumed among nations from 2004. This data was measured in million of BTUs per person and is as follows:
1. United States 342
2. Germany 178
3. Japan 178
4. UK 166
5. Mexico 63

I still find it very interesting that the UK is once again low on the list of countries, in this case the level of energy consumption. Another important result of carbon footprinting, global warming, energy consumption, etc. is a concept called carbon offsets. Essentially this is a response to the high levels of CO2 and the damage being done to the planet. This concept seeks to mitigate carbon emissions through the development of alternative projects such as solar or wind energy. This could even mean in the near future the use of nuclear energy, and the use of more and more biodegradable products. What I find so fascinating and scary at the same time is that global warming is a big, big, big problem. Regardless if a person believes that it is the planets naturally occurring warming process, or whatever, but a person cannot deny the problem of the CO2 and greenhouse gases and the damage that is being done from them. What shocks me the most is how so many people know about this problem, yet do nothing about it. It is almost as though they are like, well someone else will do something about it, and I’m not going to worry about it. I feel like public awareness on the issue is really high, yet people actually caring and everyone doing their part to lower their carbon footprint does not happen. This is a really big problem and it's scary that more people do not do anything to help the situation.