What is your carbon footprint?

[Shaul]

What is your carbon footprint? Below is a link to the EPA’s carbon footprint calculator. See how you compare to the average American. Mine is half the national average.

Household Carbon Footprint Calculator

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Mine are lower than the national average according to the calculations.

 

[Howard Is]

I can’t do the test, because I don’t have a US zip code.

However, I know my footprint would be very small.
I live in a small well insulated flat (apartment). I rarely need to use heating or cooling and if I do I have a very efficient air con.
I run electricity only.
I use my hot water in ‘on demand’ mode i.e. it is usually off.
I have a 40 liter bar fridge just to keep dairy and verges cool. I don’t need much cool space, because I shop every day.
I walk, ride a bicycle, or use public transport.
There are 4 compact fluoro lights of about 20 watts each, usually only two on at night, often one on during the day.
Apart from that, my music studio is on during the day, but it is all very low current technology.

 

[shunyadragon]

12 AA

 

[Daemon Sophic]

We’re about 2/3 normal, but the quiz lacks the very important question of diet. Being vegan lowers our carbon footprint about the same as eliminating the fact that we drive cars.
The quiz is far from complete.

 

[columbus]

The quiz is far from complete.

They never are. It's just too complex a subject.

Many years ago, in the olden days before the internet, a church buddy of mine did a focus group for church members. It was your estimated carbon footprint. Answer a few dozen questions, tote up your score, then discuss.(This was all done in the old-fashioned dead tree paper sort of way. It was a long time ago.)

My buddy was certain he'd kick everyone's butt, because he'd built his own earth sheltered house and didn't buy meat. But I won hands down(by like 40 points out of 150), because I lived in town and walked to work and practically everywhere else. I didn't air condition. My tiny little ecobox car drove as little as I could manage, almost never. Biggest thing was square footage on the house. His house was twice the size of mine. But the test didn't ask how you heated it in the winter, it just asked if you had AC. Neither of us did. But I had to blast a ton of gas every winter to keep my drafty little cottage from freezing. He barely used one rick of wood which he cut from dead fall on his back property.

But I won. And he didn't.
Tom

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Mine seems high, and I rarely use the heater and AC.

 

[Ayjaydee]

25% national average

 

[Augustus]

We’re about 2/3 normal, but the quiz lacks the very important question of diet. Being vegan lowers our carbon footprint about the same as eliminating the fact that we drive cars.
The quiz is far from complete.

Also lacks flights which have a massive impact.

My carbon footprint for flights is probably more than double that of everything else combined

 

[Ayjaydee]

Also lacks flights which have a massive impact.

My carbon footprint for flights is probably more than double that of everything else combined

We fly aboout 55000 km/yr between two of us

 

[Shaul]

We’re about 2/3 normal, but the quiz lacks the very important question of diet. Being vegan lowers our carbon footprint about the same as eliminating the fact that we drive cars.
The quiz is far from complete.

I dispute your assertion that being vegan has a lower carbon footprint. If you wish to discuss this let me know.

 

[Daemon Sophic]

I dispute your assertion that being vegan has a lower carbon footprint. If you wish to discuss this let me know.

Sure.
Here is a review article discussing the results of dozens of research articles on the subject....
https://res.mdpi.com/d_attachment/s...10/article_deploy/sustainability-11-04110.pdf

....while this one is a simplified article with the same message....
New Study: Vegan Diet Reduces Carbon Footprint by 73% - vegconomist - the vegan business magazine

Bottom line - production of various foods makes a very large impact upon one’s carbon footprint, with meat (beef in particular) making up the biggest portion of that.
Carbon Footprint Factsheet | Center for Sustainable Systems

 

[Augustus]

We fly aboout 55000 km/yr between two of us

Can calculate flights using this tool. Mine was 14 tonnes of CO2

You'd probably be about 8 I guess.

Carbon Footprint Calculator

 

[Shaul]

Sure.
Here is a review article discussing the results of dozens of research articles on the subject....
https://res.mdpi.com/d_attachment/s...10/article_deploy/sustainability-11-04110.pdf

....while this one is a simplified article with the same message....
New Study: Vegan Diet Reduces Carbon Footprint by 73% - vegconomist - the vegan business magazine

Bottom line - production of various foods makes a very large impact upon one’s carbon footprint, with meat (beef in particular) making up the biggest portion of that.
Carbon Footprint Factsheet | Center for Sustainable Systems

Wrong.

Your sources make several logic errors. One error is that since meat is denser in calories (that is it take more calorie per calorie delivered) it is less carbon efficient. That is a non sequitir. If the calories consumed by the livestock are calories not usable for other purposes (i.e. grazed on inarable land or sourced from hunting) it is carbon efficient. It is also entirely possible to produce vegetarian foods in decidedly inefficient carbon ways. For example when subsistence farmers use slash and burn techniques. The amount of carbon used to create a particular food is dependent on the methods used, not the type being meat or plant based.

Understand this. There is nothing intrinsic in eating meat that is carbon producing and eating vegan isn’t inherently better viv-a-vis carbon footprint. It depends entirely on how each is done.

Try this for an alternative perspective,
Meat is crucial for feeding the planet, and going vegan is not more green, say scientists

 

[Shadow Wolf]

I dispute your assertion that being vegan has a lower carbon footprint. If you wish to discuss this let me know.

Of course, it is not at all being vegan, but rather entirely everything to do with food production and over consumption. And even if everyone becomes vegan, poor production methods would come to same effect as we have now. An off the grid farmer will have a lower impact, despite consuming meat, than some vegan priveleged with first world worries.

 

[Daemon Sophic]

Wrong.

Your sources make several logic errors. One error is that since meat is denser in calories (that is it take more calorie per calorie delivered) it is less carbon efficient. That is a non sequitir. If the calories consumed by the livestock are calories not usable for other purposes (i.e. grazed on inarable land or sourced from hunting) it is carbon efficient. It is also entirely possible to produce vegetarian foods in decidedly inefficient carbon ways. For example when subsistence farmers use slash and burn techniques. The amount of carbon used to create a particular food is dependent on the methods used, not the type being meat or plant based.

Understand this. There is nothing intrinsic in eating meat that is carbon producing and eating vegan isn’t inherently better viv-a-vis carbon footprint. It depends entirely on how each is done.

Try this for an alternative perspective,
Meat is crucial for feeding the planet, and going vegan is not more green, say scientists

Wow! Grasping at straws much?
Yes you do.

Your written response contains almost no logic at all. It has never been about the calories per gram in the food consumed. It is about the methods used to produce the food.
Yeeeeeessss...... it might be possible to raise the same number of calories of meat via a more carbon friendly method than an equal calorie content of vegetable material......if you really worked at being an inefficient (and therefore soon to be unemployed) farmer; but the vast majority of food production on the planet Earth does not fall into this topsy-turvy carnivore Camelot realm that you dream of.

As for your cited article. Yeah. I read it. Did you?
A couple of scientists postulated at one meeting of rural, cow-country Scotland that, maybe, they could, some day, make beef/dairy production more efficient than the crap it currently is.....on a small scale.
Meanwhile, hundreds of other articles have, by many scientists, statisticians, and other researchers across many countries, shown that the current reality is the exact opposite of your lonely theory.

Did you read the articles that I cited?

Please try again.
Avoiding meat and dairy is ‘single biggest way’ to reduce your impact on Earth

If you’re so certain of the true legitimacy of your argument, then lets compare articles, eh? Above these sentences is one, massively comprehensive, multinational investigation that I’m offering for your edification.
We won’t count your first go (no penalty for poor effort) since it was (as I said) just a couple of unnamed dudes speaking at a farming conference (which, as usual, got splashed all over a number of media sites) without a shred of investigative evidence.

....aaannnnd GO!

 

[GoodbyeDave]

I took the WWF test, and my usage was low by UK standards — and they are 1/3 of US usage!

Of course these tests are crude. For example, mine asked me how much I spend on clothes each year — but all mine (except underwear) are hand-tailored, so the quantity of material per £1000 is much smaller and it's all natural. But that test did ask things like time spent on trains and buses each week, car and aeroplane usage, heating thermostat settings, take-away food purchases, meat-eating, etc.