Calculating your Carbon Footstep is Easy & Fun
...it’s a good first step to combat Climate Change
While delighting in my sylvan haunts it occurred to me the other day that it is all very well urging others on to become eco-heroes, but where did I myself slot in on the eco-scale? I measure Eco-heroes on a personal scale of 1 to 10. An Eco-hero Grade One being the first kindergarten steps in the right direction and Grade 10 being an eco-saint with the eco-charisma of Mother Theresa combined with the corporate eco-clout of a Bill Gates. I haven’t worked out what Steps 4 to 9 are yet, but from what I can see anything after Step 3 requires efforts beyond the ordinary.
Your starter for One is a doddle and is where I currently place myself. All it means is that you actually do tread quite lightly in this world and you don’t get your rocks off on conspicuous consumption. Which is pretty much where I was, but of course it’s all relative. A two bottles of wine-a-day man will quite rightly compare himself favourably with the solitary bottle of Scotch-a-day man. Whether you believe the scientists are right about global warming or are in denial, don’t signify much. It’s still good for the planet to reduce your carbon footprint, using less energy and creating less trash and so on. So Eco-heroes Grade 1 (EGH1s or let’s call ourselves eggies) spend a bit of thought changing to CFL lighting and trying to drive in a fuel-conscious way. Stuff like that.
So now I reckon it’s time to sniff around what it takes to become an EHG2.
That I reckon, means actually measuring what your own personal/household Co2 footprint is and taking the trouble to find out practical ways you can reduce it - and not choosing to be spooked by eco-babble acronyms like VERs or eco-tech talk about tCo2e’s. That last bit of seeming gobbledygook I’d better explain right now. It simply means the amount of Co2 withdrawn from the atmosphere by storage expressed in tons.
So that’s what I did. It took 20 minutes flat and what I found out is my wife and I, along with our house and office generate just a tad under 70 tCo2e a year, which I found out would cost me about US$1,050 to offset. If a technically challenged scribe like myself can hack it, then any of you can too. It’s simple. Actually getting around to doing that does, I reckon, get you to Eco Hero Grade 3, which is where we as individuals can start to get real about playing a worthwhile part in all this. But, before reaching such exalted heights and parting with my hard earned dollars, I want to see how I can reduce my financial exposure by reducing my energy consumption etc. Which either means I want to be the best EHG2 I can be and/or I am mean or chronically cash-strapped. Take your pick.
Here’s how it worked. I took myself off to The Green Asia Group (TGAG) website (www.thegreenasiagroup.com) and simply clicked on Footprint Calculators and then Household & Personal. Up came a 7-step program as follows:
Step1: Select period of data (i.e. weekly, monthly & p.a. my utility bills are monthly so that’s what I picked) and country.
Step 2: Your energy consumption. Easy as pie, my wife’s assistant has all this down pat. I just had to ask. You just key in your consumption of electricity, LPG and whatever else you use. This is what accounts for most peoples’ footprint and was 90% of mine.
Step 3: The trash you generate in the home. Very simple. They give you the average for one person at 22.8 kilos and you just multiply by the number of people in your household.
Step 4: Your car or motorbike. Just key in the type of car or bike with your estimate for km. travelled per month.
Step 5: Public transport: key in which mode, bus, train, ferry, etc., plus km. travelled per month.
Step 6: Air travel. key in number of trips per month with km flown.
BINGO!
Step 7: You have your carbon footprint for the year, broken down by category.
By simply performing this easy task, you have now reached the exalted level of Eco Hero Grade 2 and can enjoy working out how to be the very best EHG2 you can be by finding ways to save energy and lower your footprint further. But, be warned, you are now on the threshold of a step where you can actually really do something meaningful and which will play a small but important role in lowering green house gas (GHQ) emissions and saving our planet. You have now reached....
CHECKOUT!
Click on this and you will see how easy it is to offset your carbon footprint and become carbon neutral.
All you have to do is buy what are called VERs (voluntary emission reduction credits) at the going price per ton, which varies from between US$15 to $21 per ton. VERs are organised by a number of internationally accepted institutions and you can then apply your VERs to the CDM project of your choice. CDM stands for Clean Development Mechanism and a CDM project is a UN-audited and approved project that reduces GHQ emissions. The page lists three CDM projects in Asia to which you can apply your VERs. Two in China, a windpower development and a waste heat-to-power plant, and one in Malaysia, generating power from recycling paper. The cost per ton is US$15 for the power generating mechanisms and $21 for the wind farm. You can read details of each project on the TGAG website.
My carbon footprint is 70 tCO2e, which means if I pay $1,050 and haven’t cheated or got it wrong, I am now carbon neutral and have entered the main game at Eco Hero Grade 3 level.
Now some of you may remain unconvinced by all this global warming stuff and I suppose unlikely to want to buy into the whole carbon trade shebang. In which case good luck to you... and to us all. But that’s not actually a good reason why you shouldn’t lower your footprint by saving energy and money anyway, is it? It’s easy for us questioning types to be sceptical and pick holes in something as big as global warming and what we are doing about it. Just picking on one aspect we find fault with and use that as an excuse for inaction is more than just a bit lame. At the other extreme, there are others of us who will actually fixate on the game of reducing not just their carbon footprint, but all they consume of the earth’s resources to the barest minimum. Well, good for them, and I do mean that sincerely.
But that’s not most of us. Few of us fancy a return to the woods of two or three millennia back when the sylvan deities like my mythical forebear Faunus Tarquinius romped their satyric way through the leafy shadows after the darting wood nymphs. It’s not much fun huddling in a damp and icy cave for the winter, never mind the nymphs, with just your carbon neutral footprint to keep you warm.
Such flights of fancy aside, I do believe only a fool can contemplate the future of our planet with equanimity. For whatever reason our climate is changing, in ways that increasingly spook our leading scientists. The fact the scientists disagree on the whys and wherefores, the fact that our attempts to address the problem are a work in progress and therefore imperfect, along with the fact that some bent pols and financial wide boys will no doubt make undeserved fortunes along the way, does not mean we should sit on our arses and do nothing. If 100 years on we were wrong,...? Well, silly us. But at least our children and grandchildren will be around to say that.
All of which is to say, if we were all, every one of us, to take the simple steps required to establish our carbon footprint and to reduce it, or better still go carbon neutral, we‘d have made a very big dent in the problem we face.
So for anyone reading this, go check yourself out, why don’t you?
The GreenAsia Group is an organisation founded to provide a resource for innovative environmental solutions and services in Asia to the public and private sectors, as well as to individuals. Their website may be found at :www.thegreenasiagroiup.com.
