My footprints made of carbon

Many wonder what actually is a carbon footprint and why does it matter to know our own. A carbon footprint is the effect you have on the climate in the terms of Carbon Dioxide units. This is important to know because when we emit too much carbon dioxide, we effect global warming and climate change in a bad way. Each gallon of gas that we burn, the more carbon is produced and released into the environment. With the increase of CO2 in the climate, the temperatures rise and causes the life on earth to change. The rise in temperatures can cause major effects on the oceans, animals, glaciers, plant growing seasons, people and much more. 


Our carbon footprints are calculated from two major emissions, our household energy and transportation. In terms of transportation, the miles driven each month is divided by miles per gallon to determine the number of gallons of fuel that is used each month. This quantity is then converted to kg then to lbs of CO2. For the emissions from household energy, the number of kilowatt hours is multiplied by pounds of CO2 produced per kilowatt hour to get the total pounds of       CO2. The US average is 1.34 lbs of CO2 per kilowatt hour.


I calculated my carbon footprint and my boyfriend's carbon footprint and here are the results below:


My carbon footprint:

• Household average is 3211 lbs. of Carbon Dioxide per month.
• My individual emissions are 803 lbs of CO2 per month.
• 89% from home energy and 11% from transportation.

My boyfriend's carbon footprint:

• Household average is 1023 lbs. of Carbon Dioxide per month.
• His individual emissions are 512 lbs of CO2 per month.
• 77% from home energy and 23% from transportation.

This calculation is completely accurate because when there are multiply people in your household, not all of the carbon dioxide emissions are produced by you. In my case, I actually only stay at my apartment about once or twice a week. So the huge amount of CO2 that is emitted from my apartment is caused from my roommates who don't have any concern about how much energy they are wasting. But I will own up to the amount of CO2 I am emitting from transportation. I work in Lansing so it is about a 120 miles drive there and back but I only work there every other weekend to try to reduce the amount of gas I am using to travel. I have been trying to find a job in Kalamazoo to try to reduce my driving distance but so far it is going very slowly. 

If your interested in calculating your Carbon Footprint too, all you need are your energy bills and visit this site below:

http://www.safeclimate.net/calculator/