Opinion Paper: Carbon Footprint

Transcription

1 Opinion Paper: Carbon Footprint Brandon Lam Miami Southridge APES (Advanced Placement Environmental Science) October 10, 2008

2 Carbon is the basic building block of organic compounds and recycles through the earth s air, water, soil and living organisms 1. Carbon is naturally in the atmosphere, but humans have made this into a large problem by releasing too much carbon into the atmosphere, which can be destructive in ways of destroying the atmosphere and causing a hazard to us as well. Carbon footprint is an estimate of the amount of carbon you release into the atmosphere. For years people have been trying to reduce your carbon footprint. This could include simple means such as reducing energy consumption or switching to alternative clean sources of power. Means have been developed to measure the amount of carbon emitted into the atmosphere. These are known as carbon footprint calculators and provide an estimate, normally in weight of the amount of carbon you release. The average American releases about 49,581 pounds of carbon each year. 2 Each calculator varies and can be beneficial and also misleading. One of the carbon footprint calculators I used in my research is from There were many benefits to this calculator. For one it was very in depth. It goes deeply into the amount of energy you use from many sources such as electricity and natural gas. It also takes information from many aspects of your life. It asks how much you travel, how many new items you buy, and even where your food comes from. It also asks everything precisely. It goes all the way down to the amount of pounds of things like natural gas you use. It also asked the type of car you drive, the miles per gallon of gasoline it uses and its size, which is important because the bigger the car the more carbon it will produce. It gave me end results of 20 tonnes. 1 Living in the environment, fourteenth edition, G. Tyler Miller, Jr. 2 change/emmisions/ind_calculator.html

3 Of course there are also many draw backs to this calculator. One in particular is the presentation of the end results. It is presented in tonnes. This is equivalent to 2205 pounds. This is a disadvantage to users because many will not know what a tonne is and they will have to perform further research to find out. Also a drawback is that in the end it does not provide an individual way for you to personally reduce your carbon footprint. It just gives a general idea of how to reduce a carbon footprint. It should go deeply into which aspects of your life produces massive carbon, how you should reduce it and in which areas of your life you are efficient in carbon emissions. Many features could be added to this carbon foot print calculator. It would be great if it provided personal carbon emission reduction. If it tells you in the end that you emit to much carbon, you will be interested on how to reduce your emissions. If it said it right there you would read on and maybe take in to consideration that you should act on reducing your carbon emissions. However it is sending you to another website to tell you how to reduce your carbon emissions, you will not care much to change pages to find solutions. Also the website just tells you your carbon footprint and compares it to other average footprints. It should stretch the consequences associated with to much carbon emissions and be negative about it using the world is coming to an end type point of view. If you just see your carbon footprint you will just continue with your work. The calculator should also be more decorative. This will amuse readers with colors and keep their minds actively thinking about the website while they are on it. These factors will lead to a more inspiring consumer behavior. I also utilized another carbon footprint calculator from safeclimate.net/calculator. This calculator used the same process of retrieving personal data about daily actions to

4 give a carbon footprint. There were many benefits with this calculator. For one it was all on 2 pages. The other website made you change pages multiple times which bores you while you enter your information. Another advantage is the ending page. It was very creative. It gives a nice little picture of you in the environment with a legend explaining where you stand. Also the data in the end that explains where your emissions come from is given in word format and pie chart format. This will encourage readers to look at where there problems are if they don t want to read a whole ton of words. I also found it beneficial that on the side of the page there were links sending you to carbon footprint related questions like what is it and frequently asked questions. This will allow users to further research carbon footprint easily. One last benefit is that data is provided in both personal and household consumption. This lets you know how you whole family is contributing to carbon emissions and will lead to a greater improvement than just yourself. This carbon footprint calculator also has many drawbacks. The main one is that it does not incorporate enough information. My footprint from this calculator was 16 tonnes because it did not get information from enough places. The other calculator inquired a greater variety of data that can be more precise and in depth. Another drawback is that information is not provided any where in any form of how to reduce your emissions. How do you expect people to contribute to reducing carbon footprints if they are not aware how to go about it? At least the other calculator had a third party website to look on while this one does not have anything. People will not have the motivation to further research carbon emission reduction if they have to search for it, but if they see it there they may make use of it and do their part.

5 Much could be done to improve this websites effectiveness. For sure more data needs to be collected, for if more data is brought about, the output carbon emission will be more precise instead of being so vague. They could get information on what everyone in your household travels, and much more about you. This includes how often you replace appliances, how much clothes you buy, and how often you change your homes structure. If all these factors were implied, then a more accurate footprint would be acquired. Also the website needed to be more pessimistic about carbon emissions. The pictures were great, but if negative words were there to, it would concern the user much more. The user needs to know the severity of the problem in order to even want to use their precious time to fix it. Things should be added like act before it is too late 3, and maybe even a comparison of how bad your impact is. Both of these calculators were great at estimating your carbon footprint. I believe that the first one from was the better choice to recommend to another person interested in their average carbon footprint. There are various reasons for my opinion. For one it was more precise. It collected much more beneficial information. The other carbon calculator just did not harvest enough data. This one went much more in depth to energy use and transportation, which are the most large carbon factors. It even asked addition information about how often you change your possessions. This is fundamental because when you buy new clothes or appliances, carbon is emitted to produce that item, and when you get rid of the old one it produces garbage, which produces carbon do degrade. Although it was quite overwhelming, it is just for more precise information. However, when it came to visual presentation, the 3 the pocket idiots guide to your carbon footprint

6 second carbon footprint calculator is better. It used a larger variety of colors and used a unique mechanism to express your carbon footprint. It really showed how much of a big impact energy consumption is, which is also supported by books. 4 When it comes to impact I think the first calculator is more effective. This is because it gives ways to fix a bad carbon footprint and this is the key to making an impact in terms of change in emissions. If it is not known how to change your emissions, no impact will be made because the user will fell he knows his carbon footprint and that is enough, when he should get it and try to improve it. Carbon emissions into the atmosphere are a colossal problem that must be handled. Carbon can do lots of damage to our surroundings. Out of the entire world, America has the largest carbon footprint due to our luxurious style of life where we can have what we want when we want it, where as other nations do not have this freedom. Our average carbon footprint is 20 tonnes. Industrial nations have a footprint of about 11. Undeveloped countries have a footprint average of only 2. The world in general has a footprint of 3. This means America is way over footprint averages and needs to reduce carbon emissions and the first step is to know how big your footprint is with a good carbon footprint calculator. 5 4 How to Reduce Your Carbon Footprint: 365 Simple Ways to Save Energy, Resources, and Money 5

7 Bibliography 1. Tyler, Miller. Living in the environment. 14. United states: Thomson Brooks/Cole, Yarrow, Joanna. How to Reduce Your Carbon Footprint: 365 Simple Ways to Save Energy, Resources, and Money. us: Chronicle Books, Grant, Nancy. The Pocket Idiot's Guide to Your Carbon Footprint. us: Alpha,

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