What is a Carbon Footprint?

Much is heard today in the news and from our politicians about carbon footprints, carbon offsets, and a carbon neutral lifestyle. But what do these terms mean and why should you care? This article will attempt to shed some light on this controversial subject and present some of the facts surrounding this.

First, some technical terms. Your carbon footprint is defined as the total amount of greenhouse gas emissions produced or caused by an individual or entity. In simpler terms, how much pollution are you responsible for. Once the carbon footprint is determined, you can begin to figure out ways to counterbalance the problem with what are called carbon offsets. Carbon offsets are simply changes in your lifestyle that lessen your carbon footprint, or things that you can do or contribute to that compensate for your carbon footprint.

An analogy may make these ideas a little clearer. Let’s say instead of pollution the subject is water conservation. Your footprint would be the amount of water you use, consume, or cause to be consumed by your lifestyle and actions. An offset could be changes you make to use less water, but could also be making contributions in time or money to a water conservation project or trust.

Efforts that contribute to carbon offsets range in scope from completely altering the way your home is powered to simply turning off a light that you are not using. Even if you can’t take the effort to establish a different form of power for your house, there may be alternative sources of electricity in your area, perhaps one that uses renewable sources for at least part of the consumption.

On the easier end of the carbon offset scale are things such as using permanent, environmentally friendly grocery bags instead of paper and plastic, replacing all of your light bulbs with fluorescent energy saving bulbs, and recycling. Obviously, the cars we drive are a large contributor to our carbon footprint. Using public transportation, carpooling, switching to hybrids or biodiesel fuel, and simply walking and cycling are huge ways to gain carbon offsets.

And finally, when you can’t reduce your carbon footprint any more and feel you are doing all you can to conserve energy and reduce pollution, carbon offsets can be gained in still other ways. Find an environmental project in your area, or seek out a carbon offset project to contribute your time or money to. Volunteering your time and contributing to agencies that help reduce the carbon footprint of our planet, is something that will help us all breath easier and make the planet a better place for our children’s’ children.