YOUR CARBON FOOTPRINT

Here’s how to calculate your carbon footprint. You can do it yourself, or use a carbon calculator such as www.zerofootprint.net.

Meat: Each kilogram of beef produces 36 kg of CO2e; there are 9 ¼ pound hamburgers in a kilogram. The average Canadian meat-eater eats 250 grams of meat a day, or 91 kg a year. If this is all beef, it creates 3.3 tonnes of CO2. If it’s half beef and half other, call it 2 tonnes. Vegan diet - almost 0 tonnes.

Car mileage: Take the year’s distance travelled (eg 10,000 km), and use your car’s fuel efficiency to calculate how many litres of gas you burnt (eg 10 litres per 100 km = 1000 litres). Each litre produces 2.34 kg of CO2, so 1000 litres produce 2.34 tonnes of CO2.

Electricity: The average BC Hydro customer uses 10,000 kWh a year of electricity – your hydro bills will give you the total. BC’s electricity is 85% green, from hydro power, but when you switch to efficient light bulbs, BC Hydro does not turn down the dams – they turn down the imported power, which is a mixture of coal, gas and nuclear. So while your actual use of electricity is around 90 grams of CO2 per kWh (10,000 kWh = 900 kg of CO2) you can score any reductions you make at 600 grams of CO2 per kWh.

Oil Heating: Look at your oil bills, and calculate at 2.8 kg of CO2 per litre.

Natural Gas: Look at your gas bills, and calculate at 50 kg of CO2 per GJ.

Flights: Go to www.offsetters.ca and fill in the details for each flight – this will give your CO2 emissions.

Garbage: 1 bag of garbage = 10.5 kg of CO2e (transport + methane). 52 bags a year = 546 kg.

Total: When you have your total, you can offset it at $10 per tonne by helping families in developing world villages to replace their use of kerosene for lighting with solar electricity. Go to Solar Electric Light fund, www.self.org.

Set a Goal: In Ashton Hayes, Cheshire, England (pop’n 900), the villagers reduced their emissions by 20% after just one year’s collective effort. If we all did as they have, it would have a big impact as a demonstration of what’s possible. See www.goingcarbonneutral.co.uk

From Eco News, Feb 2008