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Carbon Footprint

Driving a car, heating our houses, cooking food, washing and drying cloths, and watching TV are some of the normal daily activities that require energy use and have one common factor – all of such activities leave behind carbon footprint. While we can not completely avoid (at least for now; until we find other ways), we can certainly reduce the intensity of our carbon footprint.

Just incase if you are not aware, carbon footprint is a measure of your impact on the environment in terms of the amount of greenhouse gases produced through the daily activities of burning fossil fuels such as using electricity, heating oil, and transportation. Carbon footprint is measured in units of carbon dioxide.

So, how much fossil fuels we burn? Let’s see some of United States consumptions in the year 2008 that require burning of fossil fuels.

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the consumption of crude oil and liquid fuels in the year was 19.50 million barrels per day. The major contributor was motor gasoline with 8.99 millions per day and 1.54 millions per day for Jet fuel compared to 0.62 millions per day for residential. Too much traveling is injurious to the environment!

The 2008 U.S. natural gas consumption was 63.42 billion (with the big B) cubic feet per day. Residential use contributed to 13.29 billion cubic feet per day.

The United States consumed 1121.7 million short tons of coal in the year 2008 with majority as much as 1041.6 million short tons going to the electric power sector. Coal is used for electricity generation and (a limited amount of) useful thermal output by electric utilities and independent power producers.

The total electricity consumption in the U.S. for the year 2008 was 10.58 billion kilowatt-hours per day. Residential use was a major contributor with 3.77 billion kilowatt-hours per day. Now, that’s too much TV, watching videos on You-tube, twitting and spending time on Facebook.

All of the above and other activities resulted in massive carbon footprint. In 2008, the total of 5,801.6 million metric tons of carbon dioxide was produced in the United States. Below chart explains how much carbon dioxide was produced by petroleum, coal, and natural gas. 

What can we do?

As I mentioned earlier, we can not completely avoid the carbon footprint. However, we can certainly reduce the intensity of our carbon footprint. There are many ways to achieve this goal.

Here are some of my recommendations:

1. Calculate your carbon footprint. This will help you determine how you as an individual is impacting the environment. [Click here] to check your personal carbon footprint.
2. Improving efficiency is the best way to help the environment. Combining multiple errands in a single trip saves money and reduces carbon footprint. Using energy efficient products at home is another way to significantly reduce the carbon footprint. Taking public transportation wherever it is possible is not just helpful to the environment, but it is 79 times safer than driving your own automobile
3. Reducing consumption and using reusable products is crucial to reduce the carbon footprint. This helps in reducing the energy required to produce goods and reduces waste management costs.

I am sure some of you have other recommendations. Be sure to share them as feedbacks to this post.