Carbon footprint factsheet

A carbon footprint is the total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions caused directly and indirectly by an individual, organization, event or product.

GREENHOUSE GASES FROM AVERAGE FOOD CONSUMPTION

POUNDS OF CO2E PER SERVING

TRANSPORTATION GREENHOUSE GASES, 2016

SOME ASTONISHING FACTS

• Fossil fuels and coal make up 67% of generated electricity. Besides electricity generation, transportation is the next big CO2 producer.
• US carbon footprint is 16.5 tons per person, per year whereas EU’s per capita carbon footprint is 6.8 tons per year. The per capita average for the world as a whole is even lower at 5 tons of CO2e per year. India’s emissions are still very low – at only 1.8 tonnes of CO2 per capita.
• One tonne of CO2 is produced upon combustion of 300 litres of petrol. This is enough to drive a car 4000 kilometres.
• Your water has a high carbon footprint. You may think that your water comes from local lakes, rivers etc, the efforts to maintain and purify water takes up energy.
• Similar to water, the use of paper contributes to carbon emissions, deforestation. Deforestation is responsible for more greenhouse-gas emissions than all the world’s cars, trucks, planes, and ships put together. The trees release the carbon they are storing into the atmosphere when they’re felled. 
• Food production accounts for 83% of carbon emissions. Businesses that produce food contribute to emissions of carbon dioxide etc and the methane released by their livestock like sheep, cattle, and goats. Transporting food accounts for 11% of carbon emissions.
• An estimated one-third of all food produced for human consumption in the world (~1.3 billion tonnes) is either lost or wasted each year. This food wastage represents not only a devastating misuse of natural resources, but also a bigger carbon footprint. 
• Landfills are incredible sources of greenhouse gases and pollution. Every pound of organic materials in landfills you throw away, you’ll create one pound of greenhouse gases. As organic materials in landfills decays, it releases carbon dioxide and methane.
• By driving two miles, 0.88 kilograms of CO2 is released into the air, but walking the same distance only releases 0.039 kilograms and riding a bicycle just 0.017 kilograms of carbon dioxide.
• China accounted for 23 percent of greenhouse gas emissions associated with information technology. Increased emissions from this area are also experienced in Brazil, India, and Indonesia. These will increase 9 percent annually through 2020. 
• A vegetarian typically has a smaller carbon footprint than a meat eater but the plant-based diet isn’t practical everywhere, especially for those who live in dry or cold places that cannot support the growth of most vegetable crops.
• Approximately 1,800 gallons of water is needed per pound to raise a cow, the amount of water needed in order to successfully farm in desert-like climates can be huge and is unsustainable. 2000 - 3000 litres of water required to produced 1kg of rice.

WAYS TO REDUCE CARBON FOOTPRINT

• Conserve water, especially at places with high carbon foot print.
• Eat local, vegetarian, or organic foods.
• Organic food requires 30-50% less energy during production but requires one-third more hours of human labor compared to typical farming practices, making it more expensive.
• Walk, bike, carpool, use mass transit, or drive a best-in-class vehicle. Avoid unnecessary travel.
• Avoid flying when possible, fly less frequently, and fly economy class. Prince William flies economy class and leads by example. Don’t fly on private jets.
• Avoid taking vacations at far away places, and take more frequent and driveable staycations closer to home.
• Increase your use of video-conferencing tools and reduce your work related air travel.
• Smaller homes & apartments use less energy. 
• Use a low-flow shower head. Setting the temperature to 50°C helps improve a hot water heater’s efficiency.
• Turn off your TV, computer, and other electronics when not in use. Unplug unused electronics.
• Choose energy-efficient lighting.
• Recycle household waste.
• Buy products with minimal packaging to reduce waste.
• While shopping, purchase items with lower carbon footprint.

Everything we buy has a carbon footprint.

Everything we use has a carbon footprint. It is impossible to reduce the carbon emissions to zero, no matter how hard we try. There is a way to balance your emissions by purchasing carbon offsets. This is a practical and affordable way to do something about those remaining emissions and support the renewable energy projects that help our planet. 

Greta Thunberg - Speeches - Excerpts

Greta Thunberg (16), Climate activist from Sweden

On March 15, 2019, about 1.4 million students in 123 countries joined school strike for climate justice. I am going to continue school striking until Sweden is in line with The Paris Agreement.  Richest 10% of world population emits about half of greenhouse gases. Richest 1% emits more than the poorest 50%. About 100 companies emit approximately 71% of our total emissions of CO2. If the richest 10% of the world’s population would lower their emissions to that of the average citizen in EU, then the world’s emissions of CO2 would be cut by about one third. Our biosphere is being sacrificed so that rich people in countries like mine can live in luxury. It is the sufferings of the many which pay for the luxuries of the few.

• People tell success stories but their financial success has come with an unthinkable price tag.
• We need to start living within the planetary boundaries. This will be drastic change for many but not for most. Because most of the world population is already living within the planetary boundaries. It is minority who are not. 
• The main solution however is so simple that even a small child can understand it. We have to stop the emissions of greenhouse gases. And either we do that or we don't. 
• People are not aware that there is such a thing as a carbon budget. If you regularly fly around the world, eat meat and dairy and are living a high carbon lifestyle then that means you have used up countless of people’s remaining carbon budgets. Carbon budgets that they will need in their everyday life, for generations to come. Those whose carbon budgets we are stealing are the ones least responsible and the ones who are going to be affected the most by this crisis.
• We must change almost everything in our current societies. The bigger your carbon footprint is, the bigger your moral duty. The bigger your platform the bigger your responsibility. 
• I want you to act as if you would in a crisis. I want you to act as if the house was on fire, because it is. 
• We need to keep the fossil fuels in the ground and we need to focus on equity. And if solutions within this system are so impossible to find then maybe we should change the system itself. We have run out of excuses and we are running out of time. We have come here to let you know that change is coming whether you like it or not. The real power belongs to the people! 
• Rich countries like Sweden need to start reducing emissions by at least 15% every year to reach the 2 degree warming target. 
• We are in the midst of the sixth mass extinction, and the extinction rate is up to 10,000 times faster than what is considered normal, with up to 200 species becoming extinct every single day. Erosion of fertile topsoil, deforestation of our great forests, toxic air pollution, loss of insects and wildlife, the acidification of our oceans. These are all disastrous trends being accelerated by a way of life that we, here in our financially-fortunate part of the world, see as our right to simply carry on. 
• Our house is falling apart, and our leaders need to start acting accordingly, because at the moment they are not. If our house was falling apart, you would change almost every part of your behavior, as you do in an emergency. If our house was falling apart, you wouldn't hold three emergency Brexit summits and no emergency summit regarding the breakdown of the climate and environment. 
• No one ever speak about the aspect of equity clearly stated everywhere in the Paris agreement, which is absolutely necessary to make it work on a global scale. That means that rich countries like mine (Sweden) to get down to zero emissions, within 6–12 years, so that people in poorer countries can heighten their standard of living by building some of the infrastructure that we have already built, such as hospitals, electricity, clean drinking water and so on.
• The climate crisis has already been solved. We already have all the facts and solutions. All we have to do is to wake up and change. 
• Today we use 100 million barrels of oil every single day. There are no politics to change that. There are no rules to keep that oil in the ground. So we can’t save the world by playing by the rules. Because the rules have to be changed. Everything needs to change. And it has to start today. 
• Since our leaders are behaving like children, we will have to take the responsibility they should have taken long ago. 
• If burning fossil fuels was so bad that it threatened our very existence, how could we just continue like before? Why were there no restrictions? Why wasn't it made illegal? 
• I was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome OCD and selective mutism. That basically means I only speak when I think it is necessary. Now is one of those moments. 
• If the emissions have to stop, then we must stop the emissions. Either we go on as a civilization or we don't. We have to change. We need a system change rather than individual change. But you can not have one without the other.
• Rich countries like Sweden need to start reducing emissions by at least 15 percent every year. And that is so that we can stay below a two degree warming target. IPCC have recently demonstrated, aiming instead for 1.5 degrees Celsius would significantly reduce the climate impacts.
• People keep doing what they do because the vast majority doesn't have a clue about the actual consequences of our everyday life.
• No one is acting as if we were in a crisis. Even most climate scientists or green politicians keep on flying around the world, eating meat and dairy. 
• What we do or don't do right now will affect my entire life and the lives of my children and grandchildren. What we do or don't do right now, me and my generation can't undo in the future. 
• We children usually don't do as you tell us to do, we do as you do. And if you adults don't care about my future, neither do I. 

Climate crisis is real

After more than a century and a half of industrialization, deforestation, and large scale agriculture, quantities of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have risen to record levels not seen in three million years. As populations, economies and standards of living grow, so does the cumulative level of greenhouse gases emissions. Climate change is potentially irreversible threat to human societies. Climate change is shifting of weather patterns that threaten food production, rising sea levels that increase the risk of catastrophic flooding, the impacts are global in scope and unprecedented in scale. Without drastic action today, adapting to these impacts in the future will be more difficult and costly.

• The concentration of GHGs in the earth’s atmosphere is directly linked to the average global temperature on Earth.
• The most abundant GHG, accounting for about two-thirds of GHGs, is carbon dioxide (CO2), is largely the product of burning fossil fuels. Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions account for around 80% of global warming.
• In 2013, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its report made a categorical conclusion: climate change is real and human activities are the main cause.
• It also estimates and provides a CO2 budget for future emissions to limit warming to less than 2°C. About half of this maximum amount was already emitted by 2011.
• Oceans have warmed, the amounts of snow and ice have diminished and the sea level has risen. 
• The sea ice extent in the Arctic is shrinking. Given current concentrations and ongoing emissions of greenhouse gases, it is likely that the end of this century that global mean temperature will continue to rise. The world’s oceans will warm and ice melt will continue. Most aspects of climate change will persist for many centuries, even if emissions are stopped.
• The leading irreversible changes in the planetary climate system, may already have been reached or passed. Mountain glaciers are in alarming retreat and the downstream effects of reduced water supply in the driest months will have repercussions that transcend generations.
• In October 2018 the IPCC issued a special report on the impacts of limiting global warming to 1.5°C would require rapid, far reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society. While previous estimates focused on estimating the damage if average temperatures were to rise by 2°C, this report shows that many of the adverse impacts of climate change will come at the 1.5°C mark. 
• A number of climate change impacts could be avoided by limiting global warming to 1.5ºC.
• Limiting global warming to 1.5°C would require “rapid and far-reaching” transitions in land, energy, industry, buildings, transport, and cities. Global net human-caused emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) would need to fall by about 45% from 2010 levels by 2030, reaching ‘net zero’ around 2050. This means that any remaining emissions would need to be balanced by removing CO2 from the air.
• Arctic permafrost is melting decades earlier than the worst-case scenarios threatening to unlock vast amounts of methane, a greenhouse gas.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres called on governments to stop building new coal plants by 2020, cut greenhouse emissions by 45% over the next decade and overhauling fossil fuel-driven economies with new technologies like solar and wind. He said the world is facing a grave climate emergency and  even if Paris climate accord promises are fully met, the world still faces a catastrophic 3-degree temperature rise by the end of the century. Guterres urged to halve greenhouse emissions by 2030 and reach carbon neutrality by 2050. He suggested taxing major carbon-emitting industries and polluters, ending the subsidization of oil and gas, and halting the building of all new coal plants by next year. Cutting emissions to zero would be challenging and spell the end of petrol and diesel cars, as well as gas boilers. People will have to fly less, waste less and eat less meat. The average footprint for people in India is 1.73 metric tons; for the industrial nations is about 11 metric tons; worldwide carbon footprint is about 4 metric tons; The worldwide target to combat climate change is 2 metric tons.

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Disaster and human history

Case Studies in Nature, Society and Catastrophe
By Benjamin Reilly

• The present rate of technological advance is unprecedented in human history.
• Modern college students believe that the study of our historical past has little meaning to their present lives.
• World population has doubled between 1960's and early years of 21st century. Population density have also reached unseen levels. 
• The percentage of world's surface covered by urban areas jumped from 0.1% to 1.0% between 1900 and 1990 and if the trend continues more people will be living in urban than rural areas.
• Human beings are increasingly concentrated in "megacities", sprawling urban areas with millions of residents. The trend has slowed down in developed world but continues unchecked in the developing world. 
• The parallel explosion of technological and demographic growth in the modern age is not accidental but are intimately linked. These two are complimentary processes and unfortunately linked to unprecedented natural resource depletion. The planet is now losing 120,000 sq.km. of forest every year to logging, herding and agriculture. As a result of human intrusion into forest ecosystems, deadly epidemics may just be a taste of things to come.
• Deforestation is linked to soil erosion. Soil is created very slowly by nature but can quickly be destroyed by human agriculturists employing unsustainable farming practices.
• Modern farmers are "skinning our planet" reducing earth's soil deposits by 4 tons per head due to increasing exploitation of hillsides and prairies by land hungry farmers in developing nations. 
• Mechanized farming renders soil susceptible to erosion. Although soil erosion is not a new problem in human history, the present rate of global soil loss is unprecedented. Mankind is currently stripping soil at 20 times the natural erosion rate, a process that is likely to have catastrophic impact in future.
• The current rate of technological and demographic advance has also endangered world supply of water, which is the most vita natural resource. Human population pressure - large parts of the world are now in real danger of exceeding available water sources not only in low rainfall years but also during normal years. 
• As of 2008, 35% of the world's renewable freshwater is already diverted from ecosystem for human use, mostly in agriculture which requires enormous water inputs. In arid countries like Egypt & Israel this statistic is 100% further undermining stability of already volatile region. 
• Qatar is "mining" their water sources, withdrawing more water from the ecosystem than is replaced by natural sources, 6 times as much as is replenished by natural processes. In UAE it is 17 times annual replenishment.
• So far, human being had some successes in staving off looming water crisis, through technology, tapping underground aquifers, piped transportation of river water etc. Water poor countries have sustained by importing "virtual water" in the form of food. [Production of one kg rice requires as much as 2,000 liters of irrigation water.] World's largest exporter of "virtual water" is USA which ships out billions of liters in the form of grain allowing importing nations to support higher populations than they could with limited domestic water supplies. None of these techniques will cope with increasing global population in long run.  Desalinization is expensive, rivers have limited capacity, and aquifers that are drained faster will disappear. Already some of the world's great rivers some times run dry before reaching the sea due to escalating demands on their water.
• Virtual water in inextricably tied to the prices of petroleum, another finite source. The price of virtual water is tied to transportation fuel costs. Food and fuel are increasingly becoming interchangeable commodities, and nations depending on "virtual water" for their water needs, therefore are courting disaster.
• Deforestation and road building has reduced the soils ability to absorb rainfall, lowering replenishment rate of aquifers. Industrial pollutants have made some of the fresh water sources unusable by humans. 
• Global warming due to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions will likely wreck havoc with the world's water supply. When the already retreading glaciers vanish, many rivers will flow more intermittently. 
• Global warming will likely result less "average" rainfall and more extreme weather conditions, such as downpours leading to floods & soil erosion, dry spells and drought. Higher temperatures will increase evaporation rates, reduce agriculture production even if local rainfall is technically higher. Scientific understanding of global warming remains incomplete. 
• The fossil fuels consumed between 1751-1998 were equivalent to the amount of sunlight that the world's plants captured in preceding 13,300 years. This energy fueled mankind's advancement from agriculture to industrial and then to technological age. but released thousands of years buried carbon dioxide into atmosphere.
• The result is the certainty of environmental change in next few hundred years. But human species is not well suited to rapid environmental fluctuations.
• It remains to be seen if the rapid medical advances the humans achieved in the 20th century will be able to keep up with new epidemic diseases that arise during 21st century.
• The disasters of the future might look different from the disasters of the past.
• Earthquakes and volcanoes will occur like in the past but human population growth in general and megacities in particular will magnify their effects. Other disasters will change more dramatically in future.
• Population pressure, changing climate will produce unprecedented levels of deforestation, desertification, soil erosion and consequent famine. In the age of soaring food prices, declining water availability famine may become endemic in some parts of the world,  no longer checked by cheap transportation of large food supplies that curbed famines in the late 20th century.
• Tropical cyclones may become more violent in future, though science is uncertain. 
• Finally, unprecedented population density, near instantaneous modern transportation and rapidly changing environment will create host of new opportunities for infectious diseases.
• Advances in technology might ameliorate these supercharged modern disasters. But will certainly create new disasters in future.
• As mankind's need for more energy continues to increase, fossil fuel reserves continue to dwindle and CO2 continues to accumulate in the atmosphere pressure will build on humanity to exploit nuclear power for its energy needs. Nuclear power has worst reputation as a safe, clean energy source.
• It is somewhat disquieting to note that a seemingly technological advance could have led to an environmental nightmare.
• It is clear that different types of natural disasters are intimately linked and are created or badly exacerbated by human agency. In particular, global warming may play the role as "master disaster" of the post 20th century influencing almost every other type of natural disaster.
• Rising global temperatures may lead to tropical cyclone activity and more frequent El Nino events and spread of tropical diseases. Rising sea levels will swallow coastal agricultural land and concentrate more people in squalid megacities heightening vulnerability to diseases.
• Poverty bred by global warming worsen even terrestrial disasters since poverty plays a crucial role in determining the vulnerability of human beings to natural disasters. Global warming may precipitate worst famine as rising human population run headlong into declining agricultural activity. The result may be a new Malthusian crisis on a regional or even a global scale.
• Human beings, especially those living in capitalist economies tend to make choices favoring short term gains and comforts rather than long term sustainability and stability thus making disastrous choices. We continue to build suburbs on fault lines, construct vacation homes on storm swept coastlines or volcano slopes, inundate poorly drained fields with river water leading to soil salinization. 
• In an age, where population control provides surest means of mitigating future disasters, the worlds wealthiest refuses to fund programs that offer birth control for fear of offending certain social groups. Most damaging of all, human beings are still slow to make sacrifices in short term that might mitigate the environmental damage of global warming in the long run.
• As a society, we have faith that the technologies of tomorrow will diffuse future disasters that we are creating by our actions today.

Development could be defined as the essence of general transformation and 

destruction of the natural environment and of social relations in order to 

increase the production of commodities (goods and services) geared, 

by means of market exchange, to effective demand. 

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The technological progress has been bringing us with environmental issues and problems of pollution and global warming along with advancements that made our lives easier, more efficient and our bodies healthier. There is no alternative to reduce population, preserve ecological assets, minimize emissions & pollutants,  reduce water wastage and start living closer to nature. Plastics and fossil fuel usage must be brought down 10% every year. Nothing should be allowed at the expense of environment. The so-called sustainable practices etc only postpones doomsday.