Yuppie Manor - Monthly Tidings

You know what they say about people with big feet—they make big footprints! And big footprints make big impacts. But this is not an article to discuss podiatry, it’s a look at a more abstract topic—environmental footprints. An environmental footprint is a measurement of how much impact a person or company has on the world. It looks at what resources and materials are used, how the resources are consumed, and what the consequences of the consumption are. Environmental footprints have been getting a lot of attention lately—especially carbon footprints, which is a way to look at one’s impact on climate change. So are you a Yeti, or have you bound your carbon footprint a la historical Chinese practices?

Before we get into comparing a big foot and a little foot, let’s get a quick synopsis of the problem out of the way. Here’s a look at climate change (which used to be called global warming, but it’s a little more complex than that) in three sentences:

There’s a balance. Greenhouse gases flow through the earth, ocean and atmosphere in a complex set of buffered and balanced cycles; however, human activity is throwing this cycle of balance off by taking greenhouse gases that are stored in long-term cycles and releasing them in a large, short-term bursts via the combustion of fossil fuels and massive alteration of landscapes.
We knocked it out of balance. By creating such a dramatic increase in greenhouse gas emissions, the natural buffers which regulate global climate are getting thrown off kilter, and more energy is being stored in the atmosphere since greenhouse gases trap heat energy coming from the sun.
That creates a problem. Whenever there is more energy in a system, it creates more dramatic releases of that energy to maintain balance. Not only will the average global temperature rise, but storms will get stronger, droughts will get longer, and the number of catastrophic events will increase.

Alright, so human activity is creating more greenhouse gas emissions. What exactly is the role an individual plays? And is my footprint big or is it small? There are four easy steps to uncovering your emissions and reducing your impact.

Step One: Calculate. The average U.S. citizen attributes to about 20 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions. These emissions come from home energy use, transportation and travel, food and diet, and waste among other things. There are many organizations that have created carbon calculators where you can look at how many tons of greenhouse gas emissions you are responsible for annually (including my organization at www.deltacarbon.org). The calculators use different formulae and assumptions to give you a snapshot of your carbon footprint. There are many, many calculators out on the web and you can find one that meets your needs, patience and/or level of interest. When I calculated my footprint, I was surprised to see that my trip to Vietnam last year doubled my total emissions for the year.

Step Two: Reduce. Figuring out the size of your carbon footprint is only the first step. Now that you know how much and from where your emissions come from, you can look into ways to reduce the size of your footprint. Some steps are easy, like replacing light bulbs. Some are more difficult, like buying renewable energy. I’ve included some ideas below from Delta Carbon.

Turn off lights, appliances, and computers when not in use. Better yet, unplug them.
If you’re ready to buy a new refrigerator, dishwasher, TV, furnace, or other home appliance, look for one that has the Energy Star label so you can be assured they use less energy than standard models.
Change out your light bulbs to energy-saving bulbs like Compact Fluorescent Lamps (CFLs) and Light-Emitting Diodes (LEDs).
Turn down your thermostat at night and while you’re at work.
Run your dishwasher or washing machine only when there’s a full load.
Air-dry your laundry.
Insulate your home: use weatherstrips on your windows and doors, and plastic films on your window to prevent heat loss.
Instead of buying traditional gifts, buy environmentally preferable products (e.g. with recycled content, produced locally, is non-toxic), make a gift out of found objects, or give a donation to a sustainability-oriented charity.
Bring reusable bags to the grocery store instead of relying on the store’s plastic bags.
Don’t buy bottled water if your tap water is safe to drink (it is in most of the US)—instead, buy a water filter and use your filtered tap water at home to fill your reusable on-the-go water bottle.
Choose foods that are grown or produced nearby—a good benchmark is 100 miles; next, 500 miles. One way to accomplish this is to buy directly from local farmers through a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program. Learn more about CSAs and search for a provider near you at LocalHarvest.org.
Walk, bike, or take public transportation to the gym, grocery store, or to visit nearby friends and family. And for your commute: walk, bike, take public transportation, carpool, or telecommute. Try starting with just one day a week to ease into it, then scale up to make it routine.
Purchase green energy to reduce your emissions from electricity generation to zero.

Step Three: Offset. It won’t be easy to completely reduce your footprint to zero. Another step to help overall greenhouse gas emissions is to invest in projects that are implemented by other groups that either reduce greenhouse gas emissions from another source or store greenhouse gas emissions. This is called offsetting. A carbon offset or carbon credit is the unit used to represent an investment in an offset project usually equivalent to one metric ton of carbon dioxide emissions. The prices range depending on the organization offering the offset, the type of offset project, and the quality of verification and registration. You can buy one ton of offsets for less than $5 or for more than $25. It is quite a range, and it can be overwhelming to decide where you would like to purchase offsets, since the number of organizations offering them grows almost daily. Ask the following questions when looking at carbon offset sites:

Are the types of offset projects clearly shown and explained?
Is the process of picking projects transparent?
Does the organization tell you how much money gets returned to the project and how much is kept by the organization?
Does the organization register their offsets and/or their projects with an inpendent agency?
Are the projects verified in any way?

The take-away point here is to make sure that you know where your money is going and that it is indeed being used to offset greenhouse gas emissions. Some carbon offset directories have started sprouting up and can be found on the web searching Google: some examples are at www.ourcarbonnation.com and www.carboncatalog.com. Some of these directories have ranking criteria and try to create a way to compare offset organizations.

Step Four: Educate. You’ve just learned about a topic that a lot of people have heard about, but not many really understand. Share your experience and knowledge. Tell your friends that you’ve calculated your carbon footprint, found out about ways to reduce your emissions, and know how to offset those emissions that you couldn’t reduce. The more people that get involved the more we can start tackling climate change at the scale that is necessary to have an impact large enough to make a difference. Turn yourself and your friends from Yetis to something that treads a little less heavily on the earth.

One of the big questions asked to environmentalists is does my reduction in greenhouse gases or offset purchase make a difference. The Energy Information Administration, a division of the U.S. Department of Energy, reports that carbon dioxide emissions for the United States were almost 6 billion metric tons in 2005. So, is your offset purchase going to change the world? Statistically speaking, an individual purchase of a few metric tons of carbon offsets does not make a difference. But one turns into ten, then into a hundred; when scaled up to the level of whole communities, companies, or sectors adopting offset measures, the impact will be significant. Calculating greenhouse gas emissions, reducing the carbon footprint, finding ways to offset the impacts of climate change, and putting a monetary value on the importance of emissions does make a difference.

Bill Schleizer is an Associate with the Delta Institute. He manages the greenhouse gas and carbon trading program, and works on a variety of environmental quality and economic & community development projects.

The Delta Carbon Program currently works with over 1,000 farmers and landowners in the Midwest and beyond to implement and maintain conservation practices that are sequestering carbon dioxide and improving environmental quality by reducing soil loss, increasing air and water quality, and preserving habitat. Information on the Delta Carbon Program can be viewed at www.deltacarbon.org.