Track your carbon footprint via any number of web-based
calculators, such as this one here from the University of California at
Berkeley.
Image: University of California at Berkeley
-
The Best Science Writing Online 2012
Showcasing more than fifty of the most provocative, original, and significant online essays from 2011, The Best Science Writing Online 2012 will change the way...
Read More »
Dear EarthTalk: What does "carbon neutral" really mean? And is it really possible to live in such a manner without just resorting to buying carbon credits?
--Vera Hoffman, Seattle, WA
Carbon neutral is a term that has sprouted many definitions, and how to achieve it has spawned numerous interpretations, too. According to the New Oxford American Dictionary, which made carbon neutral its 2006 “Word of the Year,” it involves “calculating your total climate-damaging carbon emissions, reducing them where possible, and then balancing your remaining emissions, often by purchasing a carbon offset.”
But the term is really so ‘06. Today’s term, “climate neutral,” complicates the issue. Tracking carbon is great, but carbon dioxide (CO2) is only one of several greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming, says the 2008 publication, Kick the Habit: A U.N. Guide to Climate Neutrality, by the United Nations Environment Program. CO2 makes up some 80 percent of the world’s greenhouse gases, but five others—nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons, sulphur hexafluoride and methane—also contribute. Limits on all six gases were called for by the Kyoto Protocol international climate treaty.
Semantics aside, whether a person can live in a climate-neutral manner is a question of lifestyle choices and making improvements over time. Start your climate neutral quest by calculating your energy usage. Type “climate footprint” or “carbon footprint” into Google and try a couple of calculators that track use in different ways. One is Earthlab’s (https://www.earthlab.com/createprofile/reg.aspx); the University of California at Berkeley also offers one at: http://bie.berkeley.edu/files/ConsumerFootprintCalc.swf.
For a calculation, you’ll need information about your home energy use and your travel by car and public transit. Some calculators ask whether you’re vegetarian, how much you recycle and compost, and how much you spend buying goods and dining out. The equation can get involved. Record your information sources, and then revisit the calculator periodically with new numbers to see how you’re doing.
The final element involves a carbon offset, “an emission reduction credit from another organization’s project that results in less carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere than would otherwise occur,” says the David Suzuki Foundation, which promotes “ways for society to live in balance with the natural world.” You can purchase credits from a renewable energy company, for instance, to offset the amount of carbon emissions you can’t eliminate through other measures.
Will your efforts make a difference? Kick the Habit says that, for individuals, “less than 50 percent are direct emissions (such as driving a car or using a heater).” About 20 percent are caused by the creation, use and disposal of products we use; 25 percent comes from powering workplaces; and 10 percent from maintaining public infrastructure. You can drive your car less and turn down the heat, but consider ways you can affect business and government policies that could tap into that other 50-plus percent.
“We are all part of the solution,” wrote U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in the foreword to Kick the Habit. “Whether you are an individual, a business, an organization or a government, there are many steps you can take to reduce your climate footprint. It is a message we must all take to heart.”
CONTACT: Kick the Habit, www.unep.org/publications/ebooks/kick-the-habit.
EarthTalk is produced by E/The Environmental Magazine. SEND YOUR ENVIRONMENTAL QUESTIONS TO: EarthTalk, P.O. Box 5098, Westport, CT 06881; earthtalk@emagazine.com. Read past columns at: www.emagazine.com/earthtalk/archives.php. EarthTalk is now a book! Details and ordering information at: www.emagazine.com/earthtalkbook.
See what we're tweeting about
21 Comments
Add CommentAbsolutely. The amount of carbon created at the big bang was fixed. Therefore, the amount of carbon on the planet is fixed. By definition, we will all live carbon neutral lives.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA silly question deserves nothing but a silly answer.
The more I read your comments, Shoshin, the more convinced I become that you just don't care about anything, period.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd before you start with the sarcasm, I would just like to say that yes, this is a moderately silly idea, but no, that doesn't mean it's completely without merit. There are things we can do to assist the drive toward clean energy and reduced environmental impact.
That being said, there is such a thing as going too far. We are, after all, natural animals, and every animal has at least some impact on its habitat. To assume anything else is denying the reality of our existence. And buying carbon credits to offset our emission rating? WTF. I'm sorry, but the idea of paying money for a totally abstract and likely false notion of security is not my idea of practicing sound judgment. I have doubts that the practice will work even for the major power corporations, nevermind individuals.
Also, it's endlessly irritating to hear of these things simply because they're vogue. Is it so difficult for people to have a conscience about serious issues without them being the talk of the week?
Shoshin, you are going in the right direction. However, there are ways to trace carbon in the atmosphere. What there isnt conclusive evidence is whether that is a natural phenomenon or man made. A good program to watch is Penn & Tellers episode on environmentalism, where they really debunk much of the nonsense out there, including buying carbon credits. Talk about a sham!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd Galaxy Man, when you take care to read the real science involved in this Global Warming scam that's being perpetrated with the same passion as the 70s version of Population Zero, you might see how people once again prove how fear is one of the most powerful forms of enslavement there is to mankind. Again, why dont you educate yourself even a little by watching the Penn & Teller program? You will be amazed at how much media bias has even infiltrated Scientific American.
What really bothers me most is that we have rich, powerful people like Ki-moon, Al Gore and plenty of Hollywood elite, telling us we need to sacrifice, while they zip around the world on private jets, live in one or more huge mansions, and in so many other ways use more resources in one year than a large family does in decades!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI do think it's good if everyone reduced pollution- I try to combine all my errands into one trip, I try not to waste things, etc. But if this is so important to them and they want to tell we peons to make sacrifices, I'd first like to see them move into a modest home, fly only commercial airlines, etc.
I'm tired of activists in so many areas being such hypocrites! If you're going to tell other people to do something, then you need to be a leader in doing that very same thing- and that means more than just changing to efficient light bulbs in your mansions or sending what amounts to pocket change out of your millions or billions, to "carbon offset" programs, so you can continue living like a wasteful king, but stick your nose in the air and say you are "carbon neutral".
A person I know was a senior statistical climatologist with the USAF. He denies climate change with such arguments as 'I believe that CO2 is not a greenhouse gas ', without offerring any source of proof. For him, environmentalists are all 'eco-terrorists whose sole aim is to destroy the US economy'. With this sort of 'expert', the planet is doomed to suffer all the excesses of people driven only with short-term profit in mind.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiseco-steve, for every nut that says stuff like that, there are a hundred eco freaks who blindly follow propaganda. I guess in our modern world where traditional religion is looked down on, weak minded people need to find a new "religion" and become as fanatical, self-righteous and ignorant as any Muslim extremist. Eco nuts are a prime example!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisgalaxyman and eco steve:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere was a study published recently where the total heat content of the planet was tracked, including the oceans. According to the GISS model, there should have been a pronounced increase in the heat content of the ocean. No increase was found. This finding falsifies the GISS model, and by extension AGW as AGW is based on the GISS model.
That's it, game over. The model is wrong. It is not right. It doesn't work. It has no semblance to reality. It cannot make a verifiable prediction. I know that this is discomforting to the True Believers, but that's the way it is.
For a link to the study go to climatedebatedaily.com and look at the recent con articles (yes, this website is bizarre; it publishes both pro and con articles).
No, I have no patience for increasingly outlandish "calls to action" and I call a spade a spade. When I see things like "living a carbon neutral life" I know that we as a society have lost our way with science and have slipped into the realm of meta-physics, phrenology and Lysenkoism.
Science is what is. It is testable and falsifiable. So far AGW has found itself smashed smashed on the rocks of hard science at every turn. People should be outraged that our politicians are following the AGW religion and it's zealots to foist terrible decisions upon us all.
Well said, Shoshin!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd further to Galaxyman
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf I didn't care about things I wouldn't bother taking the time to discuss them. Just for the record, I am anti-pollution (real pollution, not politically made-up pollution), pro-environment, I hate Wal-Mart, suburbanization, any kind of waste, despise plastic bags and I belong to several pro-conservation groups (no, not the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, or one that Alec Baldwin says is good) but ones that actually get their hands dirty and go out into the rivers, lakes and fields and clean up other peoples messes.
Any worthier groups that you would like to share?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOnce more, vague references and colorful metaphors do not win science debates. Leave those things to the politicians and start giving us data. What are the names of these studies? Who wrote them? How many have been conducted and over what timespan?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBy the way, I checked your link. I find it interesting that while there are two views presented on the article lists, there are no topics in which those views confront each other directly. So it seems there's no way to determine who is right, especially considering the variety of known falsified claims that have been made to date.
So tell us, how's life at the salad bar?
Shoshin & co : If these anti-climate change studies were correct, they would change the conclusions of the next IPCC reports. But I doubt if they will, as the reports are based on studies done by the World's best scientists, who are well aware of current hypotheses. Unless of course they are only in it for government research grants, as opponents like to repeat. I still back the IPCC, not the energy lobbies...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiseco-steve:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGiven time, the new studies will change the IPCC reports. They are already changing the minds of many in the science community, and the community is becoming more vocal in their disagreement with the IPCC conclusions. Science will win out eventually; it always does. The question is how many $$, how much time and how many resources will be wasted before this happens.
How come nobody's talking "carbon negative" yet. Obviously, we're going to have to start taking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere somtime to give the oceans a break from acidification.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe energy required will have to come from clean sources, such as solar power or the solar energy that creates weather and, with it, wind.
galaxyman:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDo you consider the data falsified?
hmmmm.....the resulting churches to Mother Green should be some real whoppers....will Al Gore be the new Jesus??? if one listens to the politicians Global Warming is supported by everyone....hmmmm is everyone going to profit from the Carbon Credit scam....hmmmm do not think so!!!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.answers.com/topic/triple-alpha-process
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.answers.com/topic/triple-alpha-process
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere was no carbon created during the Big Bang.
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/305/5682/367?ijkey=02VNnKv5xEq62&keytype=ref&siteid=sci
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://icesjms.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/fsp133v1
A little help with your AGW skepticism/ denial talking points:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.nationalcenter.org/tp22.htm
carbon offsets are the indulgences of today, has sold to a public increasingly aware of carbon fulfill their climate sins. But scratch the surface and a disturbing picture arises when the creative accounting and to develop a shell game to hide the impossibility of verifying a real benefit to climate change, and where communities in the South often have little choice, as draft compensation shall be inflicted on them.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.globalwarming360.net/carbon-credits-carbon-credit-definition.html