Transcript Carbon footprint and Ecological footprint

Carbon footprints and
Ecological footprints
CO2 emission per capita
Carbon footprint
• Carbon footprint is a measure of the
amount of carbon dioxide or CO2
emitted through the combustion of
fossil fuels;
– in the case of an organization, business or
enterprise, as part of their everyday
operations;
– in the case of an individual or household, as
part of their daily lives;
– or a product or commodity in reaching
market.
• For materials, is essentially a measure
of embodied energy, the result of life
cycle analysis.
Carbon footprint
• A carbon footprint is often
expressed as tons of carbon dioxide
or tons of carbon emitted, usually on
a yearly basis.
• There are many versions of
calculators available for carbon
footprinting – most of the ones on
the web are used to get you to buy
products in the guise of being more
‘Earth friendly’!
Carbon footprint
• It is directly related
to the amount of
natural resources
consumed and
increasingly used or
referred to as a
measure of
environmental impact.
• Carbon dioxide is
recognized as a
greenhouse gas, of
which increasing levels
in the atmosphere are
linked to global
warming and climate
change.
Activities that affect the
carbon footprint of individuals
• Car travel depends on distance
driven, fuel efficiency, and
number of passengers per
vehicle.
• Air travel depends on distance
and number of flights. Take-off
and landing use large amounts of
fuel, so two short flights
produce more carbon than one
long flight of comparative
distance.
• Boat travel depends on distance
travelled, fuel efficiency, and
size of the boat. Can produce up
to 8 times more carbon dioxide
than an airplane traveling the
same distance [citation needed].
Activities that affect the
carbon footprint of individuals
• Other motorised transport such
as bus or train: normally counts
for less per person than either car
or air travel.
• Electricity use, if provided by
non-renewable resources. (Some
calculators ask for figures from
utility bills, while others estimate
the amount from size of household
and usage patterns (such as
whether you leave equipment on
standby overnight)).
Activities that affect the
carbon footprint of individuals
• Home heating depends on
fuel source and amount used.
• Food miles how much food
you buy from non-local
sources.
• Diet - meat-eater,
vegetarian or vegan,
conventionally farmed foods
or organic produce.
Production of food includes
fuel use for cultivation and
processing and packaging.
Ecological footprint
• The phrase "ecological
footprint" is a metaphor
used to depict the
amount of land and
water area a human
population would
hypothetically need to
provide the resources
required to support
itself and to absorb its
wastes, given prevailing
technology.
• The term was first coined in
1992 by Canadian ecologist
and professor at the
University of British
Columbia, William Rees.
Ecological footprint
• Footprinting is now widely used around the
globe as an indicator of environmental
sustainability.
• It can be used to measure and manage the use
of resources throughout the economy.
• It is commonly used to explore the
sustainability of individual lifestyles, goods
and services, organisations, industry sectors,
neighborhoods, cities, regions and nations.
Ecological footprint
• Ecological footprint analysis
approximates the amount of
ecologically productive land,
sea and other water mass
area required to sustain a
population, manufacture a
product, or undertake
certain activities, by
accounting the use of
energy, food, water,
building material and other
consumables.
• The calculations used
typically convert this into a
measure of land area used
in 'global hectares' (gha)
per capita.
• A hectare is 10,000
square metres (a square
with a 100 m side)
Ecological footprint
• It is a way of determining
relative consumption for the
purpose of educating people
about their resource use and,
sometimes, triggering them to
alter their over-consumption.
• It can be combined with
overpopulation concerns and
stated as "the number of
Earths it would take to
support every human living
exactly the way you do."
Ecological footprint
• Ecological footprints have been used to argue
that current lifestyles are not sustainable.
• For example, the average "earthshare"
available to each human citizen is
approximately 1.9 gha per capita.
• The US average footprint is 9.5 gha per
capita, and that of Switzerland 4 gha, whilst
China's is circa 1.5 gha per head – at the
moment!
Criticisms
• Calculated footprints can be
inaccurate due to simplifying
assumptions.
• Many factors of the
calculations are based on
crude estimates and the
numbers may not be
applicable to all places (the
method is biased to
Northern Hemisphere
lifestyles).
• Also, the model generally
does not count multiple uses
of land: a forest is a carbon
sink and the same area is not
counted for food production.
Criticisms
• The per-person nature of
footprinting is questionable.
• For example, the model favors
households with more children: A
large house with ten children has
a smaller per-person footprint
than a house half its size with
only one person.
• This could be a perverse result,
since having more children might
add to global overpopulation, with
high ecological costs in the
future.
• This would only occur if most of
the world had or began having
large families.
Criticisms
• Currently many
countries are
experiencing slow or
even negative population
growth (ex. Bulgaria,
Latvia, Estonia,
Germany, and Poland).
• To counter these
uncertainties, the
models of ecological
footprinting are
constantly being
refined.
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