A carbon footprint measures your personal or household output of carbon dioxide (CO2) in pounds; the larger the number, the greater your carbon footprint and the greater your affect on global warming. Most people are sensitive to the fact that their daily living, in some way, contributes to the pollution of the environment.
We take in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide (CO2) and emissions from factories, cars, and mining operations are but a few of the sources of CO2. The CO2 gases get trapped in the earth’s atmosphere, causing unhealthy air that simply has no where to go. The effect that each of us has on the environment is called our Carbon Footprint.
Many factors contribute to our individual carbon footprint, including where we live, the size of our home, how old our appliances are, what we drive and how much air travel we do. While there is no way to eliminate our carbon footprint to slow climate change; there are things we can do to reduce the size of our “shoe”.
But how do you measure what you can’t see? The carbon footprint for an average U.S. household is approximately 150 pounds of carbon dioxide (CO2) per day, more than twice the European average and nearly five times the global average.
There are carbon calculators online (www.carboncounter.org) that are simple to use and will quickly show you how much your carbon burden is.
By knowing what our personal impact is, we can then work on reducing it. There are many organizations that continually endeavor to offset and mitigate the damages by CO2 emissions, including wind power, reforestation projects and solar power projects, including Conservation International, Nature.org and Carbon Counter.org
Working together to individually reduce our personal carbon footprint can only be good for our planet, our future and the future of generations to come.
Send your comments to sharad@go-green.ae