Isramart llc: Carbon footprint

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Isramart llc news:

If you're one of those people who think your shoe size is somehow related to your carbon footprint, it's time to get with it.

The other day I was mulling over whether to convert my high-maintenance lawn to a native wonderland. It'd be my small way of soaking up a bit of CO2 and off-setting some of my less environmentally friendly activites. It's partly due to laziness because quite frankly I've got tired of all the mowing, weeding, fertilising, spraying and re-seeding needed to keep the lawn looking good. My thinking is a whole section planted in hebes and native grasses would reduce the workload and help the planet at the same time.

So it started me on my carbon footprint journey. It's a trip anyone with a computer can make. I googled "carbon calculator" and was presented with a few options.

My search didn't throw up a carbon calculator tailor made for New Zealand, so I opted for a Melbourne one, Melbourne being the Australian city most similar to Christchurch in terms of climate.

First question: How much meat, fish and dairy products do you eat a week? Quite a lot. Is it packaged or processed or imported? Usually.

How much rubbish do you generate a week? This is a tricky one but it's bound to be too much. We have three big bins at our place. We recycle recyclables, we put rubbish in the rubbish bin, and food scraps and garden waste goes off in the "green" bin for composting. I opt for "a bag of rubbish a week".

Four of us live in a slightly-larger-than-average free-standing house with electricity and running water. No, I don't use public transport. I don't use the "family-sized" car much, and usually it's just short trips to take the dog to the beach at weekends.
Do I travel alone? Yes, unless golden retrievers count.

I'm starting to feel nervous about where all this is leading. I'm visualising a carbon footprint of massive proportions. A giant black shadow spreading over my house.

The final question: How often do you fly? Thankfully, and honestly, not that much at the moment. Ten, maybe 20 hours a year.

And the final result?

"If everyone lived like you," my carbon calculator informs me, "we'd need 3.3 planets to sustain us." There's more bad news. "Six-point-two global hectares are required to sustain your lifestyle". Global hectares? A bit more research is needed to discover what this means. A global hectare is a "soccer-field sized biological productive space with world-average productivity."

So it turns out my backyard is nowhere near big enough, and even covered with densely planted and lush green hebes, it won't suck up enough CO2 to make me carbon neutral.

Analysing where I went wrong, it's what we eat. Too much meat, chicken and dairy products. And while some people with jet-setting lifestyles and more cash blow-out when it comes to international flight, with our household it's the out-of-season vegetables clocking up the miles.

There is hope though. We can eat less meat, eat more locally grown produce. Grow more vegies ourselves. Plan trips in the car so we get several jobs done at once. Reduce power consumption and bike more.

Checking out a few more related websites, I'm encouraged to learn that we can all make a difference. Don't give up - lots of small steps can reduce our carbon footprint. For the time being, mine will be walking along behind the push mower.