What is a Carbon Footprint & How Big is Yours?
The term “carbon footprint” is being tossed around a lot these days, but many of us don’t have a clue what it actually means. A carbon footprint has nothing to do with your size nines or a misplaced piece of carbon paper. It is a measurement of the effect that your life has on the environment and most specifically on the climate changes.
Your personal carbon footprint is the amount of greenhouse gases that you produce in your life and is figured out by the carbon dioxide levels that you individually create. There are two types of carbon footprints, and no I don’t mean a left and a right. There are primary carbon footprints, which are the measurements of the direct carbon dioxide emissions that you personally create by doing things like burning fossil fuels or driving your car, or breathing. Yes breathing adds to your carbon footprint. In fact the average person exhales approximately 290kg of carbon dioxide per year. Primary carbon footprints are ones that you personally have control over and can reduce by your own actions (though I am not suggesting you cut out breathing all together in order to reduce yours).
A secondary carbon footprint is the amount of carbon dioxide that you create indirectly by the production and manufacturing of the things you use in your life in order to live. The packaging of food products or the amount of carbon dioxide created by the trucks that take the food to the supermarket where you buy it. The production of