Measuring my carbon footprint

A lot is spoken about doing your bit to reduce your carbon footprint, but what actually is my footprint, and how is it measured?

There are several sites online that offer to calculate your footprint, and many are designed to be, at best, blunt tools to give you an impression of your footprint, as well as advising you on how to make steps to reduce it.

First stop was the www.nature.org site, based on US statistics, and so hard to get a best-fit figure. It estimated that my CF was 20 tonnes of CO2 per year, below US estimates. That's still quite a lot though, isn't it? Driving my family car doesn't help of course, pushing 7.5 tonnes into my total.

The site also shows a world average of 5.5 tonnes per person; even losing car use doesn't get me to half this. The site did give some helpful statistics and quite pretty pie charts, presumably made with organic, non-meat products.

One area I had no idea about was that by cutting out meat from my diet completely, I would shave 5 tonnes off my total! Likewise, cleaning my air filter monthly would take another tonne off.

Another site is www.carbonfootprint.com, which is British-based. This is a far more detailed measure, wanting the amount of electricity I used (in measure or cost), specific flights and the make & age of my car (giving me a more exact CF of 3.28 tonnes for a year's driving).

While it does take longer to fill in, it feels much more precise, looking at even how I buy my clothes and how often I replace electrical goods. It gave me a far more realistic measure (this is my conscience speaking) of 7.85 tonnes a year, which is lower than the UK estimate of 9.8 tonnes. The target CF is stated as being 2 tonnes per year, so I still have some way to go, but it's clear that my car and my food & lifestyle are the sinners.

This was backed up with the one minute carbon footprint test on www.climatecrisis.net, the website linked to 'An Inconvenient Truth', Al Gore's filmic bid for a Nobel Peace Prize, which estimated a total of 6.25 tonnes, not taking into account dietary habits and lifestyle choices.

Top tip: Reversing using a cold engine uses 25 times the fuel that going forward with a cold engine does.

About this Blog

Part of the charm of Barak Obama for me is the impression you get that when his daughters came home and told him about climate change and the damage we’re doing to the planet, he didn’t just listen, he took action. It needs the example of a leader held in this much estimation with the world to force a change, but change needs participants, at every level.

I’m a teacher. For me, teaching is the opportunity to instill values in future generations as much as it is encouraging them to discover the world around them. To this end, I have decided to try and become a carbon-neutral teacher.

But what does this actually mean? Every week, I plan to update this blog on ways in which I am able, or at least, trying to, reduce my carbon emissions. This will be done personally as well as professionally. I plan to involve my Year Three class with this project, and combine it with my other role at school as the ICT teacher.

A caveat: I have the advantage of living only 1.7 miles from where I work, so we as a family (of four, soon to be five) have only 1 car. In addition, we have a wood-burning stove, which heats our house and water for six months of the year and is carbon-neutral, so only our Electricity is factored in (but which is high).

Each week I will be exploring one area that I can improve as an individual or/and as a teacher, and will share my findings with you and my class. Any suggestions, support, questions or comments will of course be gratefully received!