Carbon Footprint: Why Must we Care?
Over the past several centuries, Earth’s temperature has been steadily rising up, which has generated much interests and uproars of concerns about the warning of global climate.You must all be questioning why this is happening, and its due to your carbon footprint. A carbon footprint is the total amount of Carbon dioxide and greenhouse- gas emissions emitted due to the consumption of fossil fuels by a particular person, group, etc. and how they result with their lifestyle.
Response to the Carbon Footprint
The term has been widely used since the 1990’s as a public debate on personal and corporate responsibility in response to global climate change. Despite its frequent popular use , there is no clear scientific definition on the term, remaining confusion as to what it actually means and measures, leaving the entire situation to be mainly frowned upon. This later made people realize that we all have our own carbon footprint and we should all maintain the level of our carbon footprint. A carbon footprint is intended to measure the impact of people and and products on the planet.
The Greenhouse-Gas Cycle
The overall main idea and concept of a carbon footprint is giving a marker as to an individual or organization’s contribution to and responsibility for greenhouse- gas emissions. Greenhouse gases (GHG’s) are the gases in the atmosphere dioxide that absorb and emit radiation within infrared range of the electromagnetic spectrum. The GHG cycle begins when the sun expels sunlight through various frequencies of visible light out in all directions. Some of the light next reaches Earth where it is then absorbed by Earth’s surface and heats up the land and water. As infrared radiation heads through the atmosphere , atmospheric GHG’s will absorb some of it. The GHG’s then emit radiation in all directions, with some of it directs back toward Earth’s surface and its lower atmosphere. This will then cause the atmosphere to become warmer, along with the surface of Earth. In fact, Earth would become warmer than it would be in the absence of these gases.
Offsets
The last step of mitigating a carbon footprint is by putting it through offsetting or carbon-neutral programs. When it comes to offsetting companies, they will use a carbon calculator in order to estimate the emissions related to the individual of company wishes to neutralize. It is then translated into a fee that the offsetting organization will use to soak up an equivalent amount from the atmosphere. Other companies will then operate different schemes such as planting trees, investing in green sources or cleaner and more energy efficient industrial & household technologies. Popular offset programs would permit individuals and companies to purchase offsets for their homes, cars, offices, and travel.
Controversy & Criticism of Offsets
However, with this idea there’s been a bit of criticism and controversy. Critics assert that offsetting merely masks the of carbon-intensive activities and is often less beneficial or effective than stopping emissions in the first place. Another problem is the expense; only few can afford to offset- or even a significant portion- of their GHG- emitting activities. Critics further note that some offset schemes may not produce the claimed amount of carbon savings or may do so only after a number of years. Despite criticisms, carbon-neutral programs have increased in popularity the past few years. The participation in them have increased since their inception, and some offsets have become less expensive as offset providers have become profitable.
Earth’s Average Temperature
When it comes to Earth’s GHG’s, they have been generating heat for much of the world’s 4.5- billion year history. And without these GHG’s being filled in the atmosphere the planet’s average global temperature would be about 0 degrees Fahrenheit (-18 degrees Celsius). Instead with the existence of naturally occurring GHG’s, the average temperature of Earth is approximately 59 degrees Fahrenheit (15 degrees Celsius ). The main problem with Earth’s temperature is that over the past several years, Earth’s Average temperature has increased by about 0.8 degrees Celsius(1.4 degrees Fahrenheit) since 1880 according to NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS). Two-thirds of the warming has occurred since 1975, at a rate roughly of 0.15- 0.20 degrees Celsius per decade.
Causes and Growing Issues
In today’s society, global warming has been slightly attributed due to the steady increase of GHG’s in the atmosphere produced from artificial human activities. Causing the global temperature outside of its naturally changing cycle. Scientists believe the burning of fossil fuels had started before the time of the Industrial Revolution (1770- 1840) causing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to increase by about 30%. This growing concern led to NASA to launch their Orbiting Carbon Observatory- satellite to monitor and measure the levels of carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere 24 times per second. Researchers began to estimate that humans inject about 40 billion tons (36.3 billion metric tons) of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year (primarily from the burning of fossil fuels such as coal and gasoline), but when the planet is able to remove only about 20 billion tons (18.2 billion metric tons) annually due to natural process .
Ways of taking action
Instead of increasing GHG and CO2 emissions in the atmosphere from Now talking about ways people around the world can decrease their carbon footprint, which can make a huge difference to the way we live right now. Some ideas are:
- Eating less meat and dairy or going completely vegetarian or vegan.
- Planting a Garden
- Eating locally grown and organic foods.
- Turning off the lights
- When the AC (air conditioning) is on in your house, shut the windows.
- Unplugging your electronics devices or electrical objects in the house when they’re not being used.
- Take shorter showers
8. Switching to LED light bulbs
9. Doing full loads of laundry
10. Cutting down the number of your electrical appliances.
11. Recycling.
12. Driving less, ride a bike instead.
13. Avoiding products with excessive packaging.
14. Making a compost pile from left over food scraps so nothing goes to waste.
15. Using renewable energy sources such as solar power, hydropower, and wind energy.
Sources
Corbett, James, and K. Lee Lerner. “Carbon footprint.” The Gale Encyclopedia of Science, edited by K. Lee Lerner and Brenda Wilmoth Lerner, 5th ed., Gale, 2014. Science In Context, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/RYEVWJ114244901/SCIC?u=olat54637&sid=SCIC&xid=1668c51f . Accessed 14 Feb. 2019
Atkins, William Arthur. “Carbon Footprint and Neutrality.” Energy: In Context, edited by Brenda Wilmoth Lerner, et al., vol. 1, Gale, 2016, pp. 79–84. In Context Series. Science In Context,http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/CX3627100030/SCIC?u=olat54637&sid=SCIC&xid=a612ba6a. Accessed 14 Feb. 2019
