Your Individual Carbon Footprint

What are you doing right now? Taking out your car? Using your air-conditioner? Eating out of a brown paper bag? Do you use incandescent light bulbs or florescent light bulbs? You have any idea as to the amount of carbon dioxide your life style generates? That’s what the carbon footprint is all about.

Know what? I am consciously taking steps to reduce my ‘individual carbon footprint’. I’m also keeping tabs on the extent of my contribution to the larger carbon footprint. Right now it stands at 2.4 hectares or 6 acres. In other words 6 acres of land are needed in order to support my lifestyle! This is exactly in line with worldwide average per capita footprint. Compare this to the average footprint for an American which stands at 9 hectares or 22.23 acres! Try this link - http://ecokoncepts.wordpress.com/ to find out just how much of a murderer you really are.

Moving on, only a short while ago my cousin took up residence in the quaint and charming Isle of Wight. She says it’s beautifully clean and the air couldn’t get fresher. That’s how my mother remembers it when she was there on a short visit during her student days.

Last month when chatting with my cousin online, she, in passing referred to her new car. I asked if she had at the time of deciding on her choice of car inquired as to its carbon emission rate.

We’ve all heard of those stringent emission standards like Euro 1, Euro 2, Euro 3, and so on. Vehicles manufacturers who do not comply will not find a market in Europe.

Low emission rates are those which are less than 100g/km. In polluting cars emission rates cross 200g/km. Which means if you drive your car 5,000 miles in a year, and it has a carbon emission rate of 160g/km, your car is giving off approximately 1.3 tonnes of carbon dioxide.

And if it weighs on your conscience like it ought to, you can offset this abuse by planting a couple of trees each year. What do you think? Your car’s catalytic converter is what I plan to cover in my next post. Until then watch this space.

And oh! I’m not letting you in on what my cousin told me in her 'infinite wisdom' about her car's emission levels. Or may be I just might. Well my dears, I must be going now.