Understanding your Carbon Footprint

What’s your carbon footprint ? A carbon footprint is defined here “The total amount of greenhouse gases produced to directly and indirectly support human activities, usually expressed in equivalent tons of carbon dioxide (CO2).

“In other words: When you drive a car, the engine burns fuel which creates a certain amount of CO2, depending on its fuel consumption and the driving distance. (CO2 is the chemical symbol for carbon dioxide). When you heat your house with oil, gas or coal, then you also generate CO2. Even if you heat your house with electricity, the generation of the electrical power may also have emitted a certain amount of CO2. When you buy food and goods, the production of the food and goods also emitted some quantities of CO2.

“Your carbon footprint is the sum of all emissions of CO2 (carbon dioxide), which were induced by your activities in a given time frame. Usually a carbon footprint is calculated for the time period of a year.”

Calculate it using Berkeley’s Cool Climate Calculator

How to reduce your footprint? – Drive less, change to a more vegetable diet particularly with local vegetables, plant a garden, unplug your devices, line-dry your clothes, set up a compost system, reuse items to keep them out of landfills

You can follow along with this
Creation Care Calendar during Lent