Understanding carbon footprints
+ Reply to Thread
Results 1 to 8 of 8

  1. #1
    Junior Member
    Join Date
    May 2009
    Posts
    6

    Default Understanding carbon footprints

    What is your carbon footprint? simply put, it's the amount of all greenhouse gases you produce for each activity you have in your daily life.

    Are you curious just how much you're contributing to climate change? Then jump over here: Carbon Footprint - Carbon Footprint Calculator

  2. #2
    Junior Member
    Join Date
    May 2009
    Posts
    8

    Default

    Guys, be sure to visit the site's page on how to reduce your carbon footprint at this link:
    Carbon Footprint - Reduce Your Carbon Footprint

  3. #3
    Junior Member
    Join Date
    May 2009
    Posts
    8

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by executioner View Post
    this is surprising! I took the calculator and got this result!


    Your Carbon Footprint:
    House 0.32 tonnes of CO2
    Flights 0.00 tonnes of CO2
    Car 8.20 tonnes of CO2
    Motorbike 0.00 tonnes of CO2
    Bus & Rail 0.00 tonnes of CO2
    Secondary 3.50 tonnes of CO2
    Total = 12.02 tonnes of CO2

    which is kinda great considering that am only half of the US average, but still way too much the target average.
    I took this calculator, and I kinda expected the results I got.

  4. #4
    Val
    Val is offline
    Moderator
    Join Date
    Aug 2010
    Location
    NW Kansas
    Posts
    398

    Default

    I took it and got 4.2, ave.US 20.4, world ave. 4. However, it did not take into account the minus of building a house out of recycled materials, and didn't include the negative of only one child, or the geometrically increasing multiplier of more kids. This is common to BS footprint calculators. Using an accurate one with the reduction for recycled materials house and one child, we were at 1/16th the average US eco-footprint. The eco-footprint is more realistic for true impact over a longer term. Basically it gave a minus 1 ton for recycled materials housing and a minus 1 for one child. For two children it multiplied the tons by 3, for 3 kids it multiplied by 6, for 4 kids by 12, 5 kids by 24, 6 kids by 48, 7 kids by 96, and 8 kids multiply by 192.
    So a family from India that may have an eco-footprint of 3, with old calculators, actually has a footprint of 8 with the average of 2.6 kids. An African family may have a footprint of 2 the way of incomplete footprint calculators, but is actually at 48 because of all the kids. Much higher than MY family's footprint!!!!
    Last edited by Val; 10-29-2011 at 11:30 AM.

  5. #5
    Moderator
    Join Date
    Apr 2010
    Posts
    942

    Default

    The only EFFECTIVE way to actually reduce the human carbon footprint is for human society to agree on the dire necessity of safely recycling 100% of human-generated waste products and peacefully reducing the human population with family planning education by giving each woman the legally protected right to decide if and when to birth her children. But obviously there is no such agreement, so we do our best individually. I understand, but it's not enough because most people are mentally imprisoned in the manufactured habits of growing the commercial exploitation of the entire planet and looking greedily for others in the Cosmos. But they can't launch space exploration from a planet dead from ecocidal pollution!

  6. #6
    Junior Member
    Join Date
    Oct 2011
    Location
    St. John's Newfoundland
    Posts
    4

    Default

    In Newfoundland Canada we see a lot of gasoline athletes (snowmobile riders and quad bike riders). They fire around the mountains here and besides causing a lot of damage to the tundra they also emit a gross amount of carbon into the atmosphere. Martin Hanzalek Snow Kite Newfoundland - YouTube snow kiting has really take off as an alternative to cruising around in the winter and it has a zero carbon emission. Ebiking and Ebike Quads are equally as interesting like the ones being promoted by the martin hanzalek foundation. At the end of the day, to understand carbon, all you need to do is make an effort to reduce your personal contribution.

  7. #7
    Val
    Val is offline
    Moderator
    Join Date
    Aug 2010
    Location
    NW Kansas
    Posts
    398

    Default

    Besides only using green transportation for needs, including recreation, living in a green house like this is needed;
    To me, eco homes must have as many of these characteristics as possible;
    1)Low wood use, 2)a lot of thermal mass,3) use of indigenous materials,4) solar thermal gain, 5)solar power and/or wind power, 6)water catchment and/or recycling/minimal use,7) use of recycled materials, 8)super insulation and 9) interior year around gardens that grow food.
    The Earthship is the "Holy Grail" of eco-homes because it can have all 9 characteristics. Others can be designed to have all nine also, like straw bale homes with trombe walls and interior gardens. An A frame could have up to 7 out of 9, and a dome maybe up to 6 out of 9 with difficulty.
    >>>>Then the most important thing is to have one or no kids. The multiplier with increasing amounts of kids ruins the footprint of many<<<, if it is properly taken into account--which few do. I suppose it is too politically incorrect, but it IS a footprint factor of great importance. Overpopulation is the root cause of almost all environmental problems. In fact, I can not think of any environmental problem that does not tie in to overpopulation and its demands. So many environmental impacts, types of depletion, and long term effects are not taken into account---we don't use 1.4 or 1.5 Earths equivalent. We are using at least three Earth's equivalent. >>>Major key resources are being used at 100 times their regeneration rate, and have been for 100 years---soils, and aquifers; to 500,000 times their regeneration rate like oil and coal; and pollution is also at hundreds to thousands times the natural absorption rate---plastics, CO2, heavy metals, and nuclear waste that should be used to fuel fast safe reactors of Gen4 type.<<<
    Even if everyone's eco-footprint were one, we are still seven times the long term sustainable population that could live reasonably well and without further harm to the environment. Even then, there is the necessity of planting more trees to absorb the excess CO2, the need for sailing vessels to gather trash out of the oceans for recycling, the need for massive composting to rebuild the Earth's soils, and time to naturally let rainfall cleanse the salinized and chemically poisoned soils, groundwater, and surface waters.
    Last edited by Val; 10-29-2011 at 11:24 AM.

  8. #8
    Val
    Val is offline
    Moderator
    Join Date
    Aug 2010
    Location
    NW Kansas
    Posts
    398

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by martinhanzalek View Post
    At the end of the day, to understand carbon, all you need to do is make an effort to reduce your personal contribution.
    No, it has to go by families, AND personal eco not just carbon, footprint. Your personal contribution must also take into account the effects of your number of children, the type of housing (and where), transportation, amount of other activities, food, vacation carbon total, etc.

+ Reply to Thread

Understanding carbon footprints

Green Forum Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)

     

Green Forum Posting Rules

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
Understanding carbon footprints

Search Engine Friendly URLs by vBSEO

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59