How big is your carbon footprint?

RELEASE: Oct. 16, 2009 – Volume XLI, No. 42

The tallest man in medical history, Robert Wadlow of Illinois, had an enormous footprint. His 8-foot-11 stature put him in the Guinness Book of World Records, and his 37AA shoe size topped the charts.

While a big footprint can set a world record, a big “carbon footprint,” in today’s terminology, means an oversized impact on the environment.

Carbon footprints are in the news a lot lately, usually in relation to global climate change. A carbon footprint is basically a measurement of greenhouse gas emissions caused by individuals, organizations, events or products. The latest fad is calculating your own carbon footprint.

Several calculators are available to help determine if your footprint is a whopping size 37, a dainty size 2, or something in between. In other words, the calculators tell us if we’re using up natural resources or polluting our planet faster than it can clean and renew itself.

A 2007 study conducted by a class at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) concluded that the average American generates 20 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually. This is in contrast to a world average of just 4 tons.

Lifestyle plays a big role in the size of a carbon footprint. The MIT study found, for example, that even the relatively austere life of a homeless person or a monk generates about 8 tons of carbon dioxide emissions per year. (This is because carbon produced by government services like police, roads, libraries and the military was allocated among all U.S. residents.) But those living the lifestyle of the rich and famous – big cars, big houses, frequent airplane trips and so on – could easily exceed 40 tons per year.

So how can you tell if you’re a carbon Bigfoot? To find a variety of helpful carbon footprint calculators, simply go to the internet.

The website for former Vice President Al Gore’s landmark movie, An Inconvenient Truth, includes a calculator: www.climatecrisis.net/takeaction/carboncalculator/. Ten short questions about topics like your transportation and energy habits will help you estimate your personal impact. There’s also a helpful link that explains the methodology behind the calculation.

The World Resources Institute provides a carbon footprint calculator at www.safeclimate.net/calculator/ which uses similar but more detailed questions to arrive at a household average. There’s even a carbon footprint calculator geared towards kids at www.zerofootprintkids.com/kids_home.aspx , covering everything from how you get to school (bus, car, etc.) to how often you eat at fast food restaurants, whether you turn the lights off when you leave a room and whether your family and school recycle.

Reducing our carbon footprints to stem climate change is critical for all of us, but also critical is preserving our natural lands, farms and open spaces. Preserved lands help mitigate the greenhouse gases that cause climate change – now and in the future! A forest, for example, is a natural filter, pulling harmful carbon dioxide out of the air.

While we can all work to reduce our personal impacts on the environment, we can also make a huge difference by voting yes for Ballot Question 1 on Election Day. Permanently preserving our state’s open spaces, farmland, and natural resources like clean water, is one of the best things we can do for future generations.

I hope you will consult New Jersey Conservation Foundation’s website at www.njconservation.org or contact me at info@njconservation.org, if you would like more information about conserving New Jersey’s precious land and natural resources.

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