What is your carbon footprint?

Post by **NeilBlanchard** » Thu May 03, 2007 4:34 am

Greetings,

I found a "carbon footprint calculator" online, that lets you see how much carbon you are producing each year:

http://www.greenprogress.com/carbon_foo ... ulator.php

I need to look up my electricity and gas numbers, but my car (Scion xA @ 38MPG average, and ~15,000 miles/year) produces ~8,061 pounds of carbon dioxide per year.

[Edit: some additional carbon footprint calculators:

http://www.bp.com/carboncalculator.do?c ... Id=7032696
http://www.carbonfootprint.com/calculator.html
http://www.climatecrisis.net/takeaction ... alculator/
http://www.safeclimate.net/calculator/
http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/emissi ... lator.html

Here's one specifically for food carbon:

http://www.foodcarbon.co.uk/calculator.html]

lucienrau · Post by **lucienrau** » Thu May 03, 2007 6:00 am

Thanks for the link. It's pretty interesting.

Elixer · Post by **Elixer** » Thu May 03, 2007 7:06 am

hmm... didn't know that being vegetarian was so good for the environment. I haven't driven at all while I've been over here in Germany, but flying from the US to Germany and back plus other travel puts my flight miles this year at around 15,000 miles, which doesn't put me in super good standings, but interestingly enough still better than driving 15,000miles with a 30mpg car.

On a lighter note:

http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/ecobunnies

Post by **Ralf Hutter** » Thu May 03, 2007 7:09 am

17,109 pounds of CO2/year. That's a "B" rating.

thejamppa · Post by **thejamppa** » Thu May 03, 2007 7:53 am

Since I eat meat, my eating habbits are C! Damn that's, that's... outragious!

Your overall carbon footprint grade is:

A
Excellent! Keep it up!

LOL, this what you get when you don't own car...

Post by **Rusty075** » Thu May 03, 2007 9:19 am

A- @ 8379lbs of CO2, with a not completely honest answer of "no" to the meat question.

That meat question is eco-weenie-pasty-faced-vegan-BS. There's more to your eating habits than "Do you eat meat?". If I eat meat once or twice a week (which is about my average), it must have a different impact on my CO2 footprint than someone like say, my father, who has to have some sort of dead animal on the plate at every sitting.

According to that question, if I ate meat produced by feeding my kitchen scraps to a pigs in my backyard, I would still have the same carbon footprint as Joe Schmoe who ate a Big Mac every day for lunch. That doesn't seem reasonable.

It should be more of a gradation scale, like "How many times a week do you eat meat?"

Post by **NeilBlanchard** » Thu May 03, 2007 11:58 am

Hello,

Right, buying locally raised, grass-fed beef would be a lot different than buying corn-fed beef from the supermarket. Or for that matter, eggs from a local farm vs those from an egg farm in another state.

Ditto for vegetables and fruits: buying from a farmers market within walking distance is a lot different than stuff flown in from Chile or New Zealand.

Post by **CA_Steve** » Thu May 03, 2007 6:16 pm

What's also interesting is the break-even point between flying or driving to a destination - your car must get at least 46mpg to have an equal/smaller footprint than taking a plane.

Post by **Rusty075** » Thu May 03, 2007 6:32 pm

CA_Steve wrote:What's also interesting is the break-even point between flying or driving to a destination - your car must get at least 46mpg to have an equal/smaller footprint than taking a plane.

Yeah, that brings up another good point...

Is my carbon footprint different when I fly coach versus when I fly in the SPCR Gulfstream G550? It gets 0.86mpg.

disphenoidal · Post by **disphenoidal** » Sun May 06, 2007 12:24 pm

Rusty075 wrote:
Is my carbon footprint different when I fly coach versus when I fly in the SPCR Gulfstream G550? It gets 0.86mpg.

What kind of noise levels does the SPCR jet make, anyway?

Chris Chan · Post by **Chris Chan** » Sun May 06, 2007 2:54 pm

whoaaaaaaaaaa. 45 018 lb CO2 per year, and that's not even taking into account electric and gas bills. We have a house of 4.

AZBrandon · Post by **AZBrandon** » Sun May 06, 2007 9:23 pm

CA_Steve wrote:What's also interesting is the break-even point between flying or driving to a destination - your car must get at least 46mpg to have an equal/smaller footprint than taking a plane.

Doesn't that assume driving alone? For even a small family (husband, wife, 1 child) that would divide the math to only 15mpg for the car, making automobile travel much more eco-friendly for folks like me in just such a family situation with a car like my Civic that easily gets 35mpg on the highway.

Devonavar · Post by **Devonavar** » Mon May 07, 2007 3:22 pm

Nice political tool, but about as useful as the dime-a-dozen PSU calculators that are out there.

I get an F for my flying habits at just 4000 miles / year. That's just one round-trip to Ottawa / Toronto and back. That's hardly "frequent flyer" status. I wonder what businessmen one weekly trips rack up...?

Traciatim · Post by **Traciatim** » Mon May 07, 2007 5:42 pm

Why bother with CO2? Why not just target methane or nitrous oxide?. Over the past 250 years or so Methane in the atmosphere has doubled and CO2 is up about 30 percent. Methane is something near 21 times more effective at aiding global warming. Though, I guess I shouldn't trust all the stuff I read at globalwarmingisascamtoreadyourbrainsowearaluminiumfoilhelmets.com

Down with Fertilizer, Wetlands, Rice Patties, and Cows!

Post by **NeilBlanchard** » Mon May 07, 2007 6:09 pm

Hello,

Do you know where a lot of methane comes from?

Termites.

I'm not sure how we can do anything about termites' digestion -- but we can do something about carbon dioxide. I'm reading that a lot of methane also comes from coal mines -- another excellent reason to stop burning coal in the way we do.

You say that it has doubled -- what percentage of the air is it now? According to this page:
http://www.epa.gov/methane/scientific.html
it is only 1750ppb (parts per billion?) or 0.00000175%, so even if it is 21X better at insulating the heat, it would seem to be small compared to carbon dioxide? According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide) it is CO2 concentration is about 0.0383% by volume (383 ppmv) or 0.0582% by weight.

qviri · Post by **qviri** » Mon May 07, 2007 6:25 pm

NeilBlanchard wrote:Do you know where a lot of methane comes from?

Termites.

Are you suggesting that the global termite population doubled in the last 250 years?

Post by **NeilBlanchard** » Tue May 08, 2007 2:47 am

Hello,

No, further in my post I mentioned that another source is coal mining, and there are other human caused sources, too.

As I discussed, the level of methane is a tiny fraction of the level of carbon dioxide, so despite methane's 20-21X greater insulating properties, it probably is not having as great an effect as carbon dioxide.

There is 33,000X more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than methane. So, that means it is at least 1,500X more important as a greenhouse gas insulator!

Also, methane breaks down in about 12 years, whereas carbon dioxide is the very stable and will not break down -- only plants can do that!

What is your carbon footprint?

What is your carbon footprint?

Where does methane come from?

Re: Where does methane come from?