Your+Carbon+Footprint

 Your Carbon Footprint
Introduction What is a Carbon Footprint? Why is your Carbon Footprint important? How does your Carbon Footprint affect us? How do you calculate your Carbon Footprint? Facts about your Carbon Footprint? What can you do to reduce your Carbon Footprint?
 * Table of contents**

**Introduction** The Carbon Footprint of the average American is **about** **50 tons of carbon dioxide a year**. This is a single person not an American household. To learn more on saving your planet, you can read on and reduce your Carbon Footprint.


 * What is a Carbon Footprint?**

A [|carbon footprint] is the amount of carbon being emitted by an activity or organization. Your carbon footprint is how much you affect the environment. We would like to make the smallest carbon footprint possible, but we have yet to take a step in that direction.


 * Why is your Carbon Footprint important?**

Your Carbon footprint is %50 of humanity's overall ecological footprint. You may not know it but we are in an ecological overshoot right now, which is partly responsible for __Climate change__. We have to focus on this ecological overshoot before we initiate global warming solutions.

How does your Carbon Footprint affect us?**
 * [[image:http://www.footprintnetwork.org/newsletters/images/1-10/nl_graph_390.gif width="390" height="257" align="right" caption="In 2008, our total Ecological Footprint exceeds 1.5 Earths"]]

Your Carbon footprint affects the ecology of the world. Pressure can be shifted by this, changing cropland and forestland. Below is a figure that shows how we exceeded the __Earth's biological capacity__. This must be reduced in order for the planet to have a future. "Whether we are deciding which carbon offsets are the most effective or which energy sources will lead us into the future, the Ecological Footprint tells us whether our solutions lead us out of overshoot and toward one planet living."(Global Footprint Network)


 * How do you calculate your Carbon Footprint?**

The best way to calculate your carbon footprint is by adding up how much fuel you used that emits CO2. You would add up how much oil, diesel, and petrol you used, or any other fuel burned for that year. Each emits different amounts of CO2 so you'll need to calculate it out. There are many useful sites that calculate it for you, such as the one linked below. I doubt you will not be surprised when you find out how much you've been contributing to global warming through the release of Co2.


 * Facts about your Carbon Footprint**

A typical roundtrip cross-country flight can release around 2,000 pounds of carbon dioxide per passenger Researchers conclude that the total energy use going into a single cheeseburger amounts to somewhere between about **7 and 20 megajoules,** which means the Co2 emitted from the power to make a single cheeseburger is higher then the C02 emitted by some entire countries!
 * What can you do to reduce your Carbon Footprint?**

__Reduce your energy usage__
 * 1) Reduce your water consumption
 * 2) increase fuel efficiency
 * 3) Drive less when possible
 * 4) eat less meat
 * 5) Reuse and recycle
 * 6) Buy eco friendly products (New florescent lights, etc.)
 * 7) Decrease the number of times you fly
 * 8) Use alternative sources of energy (Thermal energy)
 * 9) Purchase carbon offsets
 * 10) Drive together in one car (carpooling)

Overall, we need to find reduce our carbon emissions and you can start by changing the things you do in your everyday lifestyle.

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http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/page/carbon_footprint/ http://www.nature.org/initiatives/climatechange/calculator/ http://www.expedia.com/daily/sustainable_travel/going_green/carbon_footprint.asp http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/page/personal_footprint/ http://www.conservation.org/act/live_green/Pages/ecofootprint.aspx