Footprints in the Sands of Carbon

Carbon Measuring.

A few months ago, one of my podcast listeners reached out and told me about a radio show and suggested I listen to it. Not only did I listen to it, I then reached out and invited some of those guests to be on my podcast. The first of those interviews is airing all month long.  This month.

Now before you tell me how awesome it was of me to chase after A-list calibre people, let me assure you, I thought long and hard about doing it. Cuz I don’t play in their lane, I never immediately see any common connections and reaching out to strangers still feels strange. (Another silly way to test the true theory that worries really are false evidence appearing real.)

I snagged a fellow who teaches economics and history at Duke University in the US. Professor Dirk Philipsen was a fascinating interview. Not because I don’t really understand economics. More because he took giants gobs of information and made them all extremely easy to grasp. I hope you can make some time to listen to June’s series on Exploring Compassionate Capitalism.

My point today is to let you know there are some super easy ways to measure our own carbon footprint.  And if we know our part in driving the earth’s temperature, then we can take the right actions better and faster. That makes sense, doesn’t it?

During our conversation,

Dirk mentioned that we could all calculate our carbon footprint. Why should we care, you ask? No doubt you’ve seen all the blathering in the news about lowering the earth’s temperature by 1.5 degrees.

The Professor said that he himself, despite getting rid of his car and choosing to bike, had a carbon footprint that was 3 or 5 times bigger than it should be in order to do his part to bring the earth’s temperature down by 1.5 degrees. He further said that our lifestyle had to change if we could make a dent significantly.

Honestly, so many of us recycle, reuse, compost and do what we are asked to do. And I am constantly being reminded that ‘every little bit helps.’ But a real live tool. That actually measures what our lifestyle is doing. I was hooked.

I found several calculators and am delighted to announce that I scored ‘Loser’ in each one. Despite ‘thinking’ I had done some good stuff, I scored as badly as the Professor. I was flabbergasted at the failing results. Never ever have I seen anything in black and white that gives me an idea of what one person is or is not doing to the planet.

Here are two good calculators. From the carbon footprint organization https://www.carbonfootprint.com/calculator.aspx and from the World Wild Life Federation (I refer to this group as the Panda People) https://footprint.wwf.org.uk/

(Don’t get fussed if the currency is NOT the Canadian dollar. Use a ratio of 2 UK pounds or 1.35 US dollars to 1 Cdn $, and you’ll get a pretty good idea.)

I encourage you to use one of the calculators

(Or find your own on Google). Not only will it give you a great idea about where you stand vis-a-vis the rest of the world, but you’ll also immediately

• See the areas that are driving your score

• View ways to bring the score downwards

• Decide which side of the fulcrum you want to sit on.

I promise you it will be an interesting exploration. And if you like, let’s compare our scores!