What is Your Carbon Footprint?
Do you know how your lifestyle impacts the environment? Are you a Sasquatch or a size six?
A carbon footprint is a “yardstick" that measures the amount of carbon dioxide, or greenhouse gas, released into the air by your lifestyle.
Daily activities of eating, the gasoline we burn when travelling, and use of electricity, releases carbon dioxide into the air. A carbon calculator measures the carbon dioxide we, individually or collectively, produce and is measured in tonnes.
A carbon footprint provides answers:
- How much forest land is needed to absorb greenhouse gas emissions that are produced from your use of energy? (e.g. from commuting) and,
- How much farm land is needed to provide the food you eat?
Carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases have always been present, keeping the earth suitable for life by trapping heat like a greenhouse. With industrialization, the amount of these gases has steadily increased, trapping more heat and raising global average temperatures. This is what is known as climate change. Everyday, we impact the Earth through our activities that create greenhouse gases.
Canadians are formidable consumers. Each Canadian has a carbon footprint of approximately 9.8 tonnes per year - larger than European countries like France at 5.8 tonnes per year and much larger than developing countries like India, with an average carbon footprint of 1.4 tonnes per year per person
The average Canadian carbon footprint is equivalent to the volume of two Olympic sized swimming pools. The average Indonesian would only fill one quarter of an Olympic pool.
Small positive changes in the way we live can positively affect our environment. We hope the Peel Region Living City Carbon Footprint Calculator encourages you to think differently about your particular lifestyle and the impact it has on the environment over time. You can use this calculator for your own personal carbon management
Find out the size of YOUR footprint.
Revised:
Monday July 19 2010
www.peelregion.ca
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