Calculating Your Carbon Footprint

In our last post we discussed why we should eat local foods.  One of the reasons was to lower our carbon emissions, or carbon footprint.  Direct and indirect emissions of carbon is the main contributor of global climate change.  So reducing our carbon footprint will help reduce the effects of climate change.  To do our part, my family has reduced our travel, purchased fuel efficient cars (one is a hybrid Toyota Prius), put in a 4 KW photovoltaic system that provides about 80% of our electricity, reduced our consumption, buy local and bulk as much as possible, and we use organic methods to grow most of our vegetables.

To figure out your carbon footprint, there are several online calculators.  The Nature Conservancy has a nice one located here.   There are also several hints there on things you can do such as switching out all your incandescent light bulbs for compact florescent (CFLs) bulbs. Switching out even one bulb saves 500 pounds of coal which reduces CO2 pollution by 1430 pounds over the lifetime of the bulb!   Don't forget to "buy local" and support your local businesses.  This is particularly critical during this economic downturn.  Your neighbors need your support and your planet can use the lower carbon emissions:)