| Dear
EarthTalk: How can I measure—and then
improve—my overall “carbon footprint?”
What are the major areas of one’s daily life that
one measures?
-- Andy Fusco, Passaic, NJ
| |
How
big is your footprint? A number of web-based resources
can help you assess the environmental impact of your
personal activities and lifestyle and help you make
improvements that will positively impact the planet.
© Getty Images |
With
global warming dominating so many headlines today, it’s
no surprise that many of us are looking to reduce the amount
of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases our activities
produce.
By
assessing how much pollution each of your individual actions
generates—be it setting your thermostat, shopping
for groceries, commuting to work or flying somewhere for
vacation—you can begin to see how changing a few habits
here and there can significantly reduce your overall carbon
footprint. Luckily for those of us who want to see how we
measure up, there are a number of free online carbon footprint
calculators to help figure out just where to start changing.
One
of the best is the University of California at Berkeley’s
Cool Climate Calculator. The free web-based tool takes into
account daily driving mileage and grocery and electricity
expenses, among other factors, to assign a carbon score,
which users can compare to similar households across the
28 largest urban areas in the U.S. Some of the results are
surprising. For example, residents of eco-aware San Francisco
tend to have bigger carbon footprints than those in more
conservative Tampa, Florida. The reason: San Francisco has
a higher cost of living and colder, wetter winters (requiring
more fossil-fuel derived heat).
Another
great carbon footprint calculator is available at EarthLab.com,
an online “climate crisis community” that has
partnered with Al Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection
and other high-profile groups, companies and celebrities
to spread the word that individual actions can make a difference
in the fight against global warming. Users just take a three-minute
survey and get back a carbon footprint score, which they
can save and update as they work to reduce their impact.
The site provides some 150 lifestyle change suggestions
that will cut carbon emissions—from hanging your clothes
to dry to sending postcards instead of letters to taking
the bike instead of the car to work a few days a week.
“Our
calculator is an important first step in educating people
about where they are, then raising their awareness about
what they can do to make easy, simple changes that will
lower their score and positively impact the planet,”
says Anna Rising, EarthLab’s executive director. “Our
goal isn’t about convincing you to buy a hybrid or
retrofit your house with solar panels; our goal is to introduce
you to easy, simple ways that you as an individual can reduce
your carbon footprint.”
Other
websites, green groups and corporations, including CarbonFootprint.com,
CarbonCounter.org, Conservation International, The Nature
Conservancy and British Oil Giant BP, among others, also
offer carbon calculators on their websites. And CarbonFund.org
even allows you to assess your carbon footprint—and
then offers you the ability to offset such emissions by
investing in clean energy initiatives.
CONTACTS:
Cool
Climate Calculator; EarthLab;
CarbonFootprint.com;
CarbonCounter.org;
Conservation
International; The
Nature Conservancy; BP.
Dear
EarthTalk: Why are some environmental groups
jumping on the immigration issue? What does immigration
have to do with the environment?
-- Ginna Jones, Darien, CT
| |
U.S.
population stabilization advocates see high immigration
numbers as key to increased pollution, sprawl, and
water and energy shortages. Most mainstream green
groups place the blame on Americans' extravagant consumption
habits, gas-guzzling cars and huge homes.
© Getty Images |
What to do about
booming legal and illegal immigration rates is one of the
most controversial topics on Americans’ political
agenda these days. More than a million immigrants achieve
permanent resident status in the U.S. every year. Another
700,000 become full-fledged American citizens. The non-profit
Pew Research Center reports that 82 percent of U.S. population
growth is attributable to immigration.
Meanwhile, the
U.S. Census Bureau estimates that U.S. population will grow
from 303 million people today to 400 million as early as
2040. While many industrialized nations, including Japan
and most of Western Europe, are experiencing population
growth slowdowns due to below replacement birth levels and
little immigration, the U.S. is growing so fast that it
trails only India and China in total numbers.
Advocates for
U.S. population stabilization, including some environmental
organizations and leaders, fear that this ongoing influx
of new arrivals is forcing the nation to exceed its “carrying
capacity,” stressing an already overburdened physical
infrastructure. David Durham of Population-Environment Balance
says that Americans who care about the environment should
insist on reducing immigration, to recognize “ecological
realities such as limited potable water, topsoil and infrastructure.”
He also cites studies showing that a permissive U.S. immigration
policy drives up fertility rates in the sending countries
“which is the last thing these sending countries need.”
To others the
problem is larger than immigration itself. “People
don’t just materialize at our border, or at any border,”
says John Seager of Population Connection. “When you
talk about immigration, you’re talking about the second
half of a process that begins when people decide to leave
their homes.” And they are usually leaving their homes
because of hunger, lack of work, oppression, or any number
of other often-desperate reasons. Seager and many others
argue that by helping poor nations better address the economic
and family planning needs of their citizens, Americans can
not only help improve the lot of millions of people living
in dire poverty, but also slow down the tide of immigration.
Groups focusing
on the immigration-environment nexus are keen to get their
voices heard, but many mainstream green groups shun the
highly divisive topic, preferring instead to encourage Americans,
who are infamous around the world for their huge homes,
gas-guzzling cars and extravagant consumption habits, to
curb their unsustainable lifestyles, which they see as more
fundamental to U.S. environmental problems than population
pressures. With just five percent of the world’s people,
Americans use a quarter of the world’s fossil fuels,
own more private cars than drivers with licenses, and live
in homes that are on average 38 percent larger today than
they were in 1975. By scaling back, Americans can take a
big bite out of pollution, sprawl and other environmental
problems, while also setting a good example for those who
land in the U.S. every year, lowering the nation’s
collective carbon footprint significantly in the process.
CONTACTS:
Pew
Research Center; Population-Environment
Balance; Population
Connection. |
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