5 Acting on your carbon footprint
By this stage, you have seen plenty of ideas for reducing your carbon footprint, when you visited some of the resources. There is even an online game to provide ideas about what you can do (see below). But if you are finding it hard to prioritise what to do, among all the conflicting suggestions, you might like to consider the energy (or carbon) hierarchy:
Under this hierarchy, carbon offsetting is seen as the last step for unavoidable emissions. This is because it is usually much easier to salve your conscience by paying for an offset than to take the more difficult actions yourself. The whole question of carbon offsetting is too complex for this unit.
Finally, don't forget to share your ideas with other people. Look into actions such as joining a Carbon Rationing Action Group (CRAG), or seeing whether your community can become part of the Transition Towns network.
Here are some other resources to explore that may assist you in changing your carbon footprint.
Online computer game: Logicity is set in a 3D virtual city with five main activities where you are set the task of reducing the carbon footprint of an average resident.
A click-through low-carbon house showing how the bloggers on the Guardian’s ‘Green your home’ website cut their energy bills with solar panels, insulation, wood-burning stoves and more.
The Home Energy Check from the Energy Saving Trust identifies key energy-saving measures at home.
Guardian columnist George Monbiot likens carbon offsetting to selling papal indulgences.
The UK government’s Quality Assurance Scheme for Carbon Offsetting.
The Gold Standard is a rival international quality assurance scheme backed by WWF.
Voluntary Carbon Standard (VCS) is another international quality assurance scheme used by some UK carbon-offset comp anies.
Transition Towns Network is a social movement that seeks to support communities to reduce their carbon footprint.
Activity 5
Consider your thoughts and feelings in response to the following questions.
There are many websites offering advice and support on how to calculate and reduce your carbon footprint, but do they tell you anything new? Or is much of it relatively straightforward actions such as avoiding wasting energy, adding home insulation and efficient, lower-carbon heating systems, trying to travel less and avoiding flying?
Do you think that this will enable us to get to the lower per capita carbon footprints that will be needed if we are to meet some of the harder targets?
The following questions will take you further into this topic.
Is a carbon footprint a useful tool in combating global climate change?
How can we overcome trade-offs between simple footprints, based on many assumptions, and more accurate footprints, which people may lack data for, in order to create robust, reliable numbers?
Are international comparisons meaningful, or are they distorted by local weather and social conditions, and the international trade in goods and services?
Have carbon footprints been ‘hijacked’ by the carbon-offsetting industry?
Will we be able to make the sort of reductions in footprints necessary to meet some of the tougher targets for carbon emissions?
What would happen if everyone ignored their carbon footprint and carried on as usual?
4.3 Setting a personal target – contraction and convergence