My Carbon Footprint
The term “carbon footprint” is used frequently when discussing an individual’s environmental impact. Measuring the amount of carbon one person uses in their daily lives is a great way to quantify a person’s environmental impact as carbon usage is tied to energy use, gasoline use, house hold fuel use, transportation emissions and resource consumption in general. Carbon calculations actually account for all sorts of Greenhouse gasses, not just carbon.
Carbon is produced in all areas of modern life. If you are an individual living in the “modern world”, chances are, you are consuming resources and emitting carbon. Everyone does it, even Al Gore, because these resources make our lives better, which is the ultimate goal. Unfortunately, the amount of resources we are consuming and the amount of carbon we are emitting, are starting to make life on our planet a bit worse: temperatures are changing, weather patterns are becoming more extreme and climate refugees are forced from their homes. Our next step is to take responsibility for this reality and figure out a good solution for simultaneously enjoying our modern lives and taking care of our lovely planet.
What can we do? First, we can understand our carbon footprint to figure out where our emissions are coming from. We can learn how to reduce those emissions and reduce our general environmental impact. Additionally, we can become “carbon neutral” by offsetting our carbon emissions to neutralize the carbon our personal lives emit by investing money to purchase an equal amount of offsets that help fund clean energy projects that need this money to get off the ground and fulfill increasing energy demands in underdeveloped areas.
Learn More:
