What is the 'carbon footprint'? How does it affect the climate? ?

The term carbon footprint is simply a measure of how much carbon dioxide that you are personally responsible for. The more flights you take every year the higher your footprint; the more you leave heaters and boilers on, the greater is your carbon footprint. The more burgers you consume the greater is your carbon footprint. But say you drive an electric hybrid. or perhaps you travel to work on public transport that uses hydrogen fuel cells then your carbon footprint will reduce. If you get rid of your old electrical appliances and replace them with energy efficient models you will be reducing your carbon footprint. Likewise if you unplug your TV before turning in you will doing the planet and Mankind a great service since you will be reducing your carbon footprint. But for all those who say it's a con,or sick joke, I urge you to get out and go to the main centres of research into climate change and establish the facts for yourselves because it's the younger generation who will face enormous problems in the future, take a trip up into the Arctic and ask yourselves why polar bears are becoming cannibals; why are polar bears swimming up to 100 miles in open ocean? As for those who say it's not Mankind, what do you expect if you continue to burn oil, gas and coal at ever increasing tonnages for over 200 years? What do you expect if your agricultural systems continue to push more nitrous oxide into the air? What do you expect if we allow methane levels to increase at their current rate? There maybe processes occurring which we have let to discover but as long carbon, albeit oil, gas or coal is burned in air it will produce carbon dioxide. Moreover as a researcher in chemical metallurgy myself , let me tell you that for every ton of copper produced in Chile, two tonnes of sulphur dioxide are vented into the atmosphere, where it reacts with water vapour and precipitates as sulphuric acid. Annual copper production, 6-10 million tonnes now you tell me how much sulphur dioxide that sends into the atmosphere- believe you me it ain't too clever on the local flora and fauna either! If you don't care then fine, very soon you will have no choice- Mankind will have taken the wrong road yet again! But say you installed solar PV and solar hot water systems, installed a wood burner, drove an electric hybrid and made some small changes in the home you could actually reduce your carbon footprint by over 80% and cut your energy costs as well. John Tipple

carbon footprint is the total amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases emitted over the full life cycle of a product or service. There are a number of more specific definitions available, and a comprehensive review of definitions can be found in ISA-UK research report 07-01[1]. A carbon footprint is usually expressed as grams of CO2 equivalents, which accounts for the different global warming effects of different greenhouse gases (Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology POST, 2006). The carbon footprint is calculated using the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) method. This established method has been standardised under ISO 14044.

The 'carbon footprint' is the mass of the CO2 equivalent emissions associated with an activity, individual or organisation. Eg the average Briton has a carbon footprint of 10 tons of CO2/year. The average American is about 20t/yr. Carbon dioxide equivalent is a measurement of greenhouse gases. It's mostly CO2, but every bit of methane you release is worth about 20 bits of CO2, so methane is multiplied by 20 and added to your carbon footprint. Greenhouse gases have absorption band that mean they absorb some of the long wavelengths emitted by the Earth rather than the short ones emitted by the Sun. They let heat in, but prevent it from escaping, leading to warming. This has been blamed, by the majority of the scientific establishment, for recent warming and probable future warming[1]. There's lots of technologies. Anything that produces something people can use (mostly electricity or heat) without releasing carbon dioxide, or reduces your consumption of energy & resources should reduce your carbon footprint. Driving a more efficient car is cheaper and cuts your carbon footprint. The downside is that people like driving big cars. Wind power is a very cost effective form of renewable energy - US subsidies work out at about 6% of the final price of electricity and wind power is going through a boom. The downside is that it needs a lot of turbines (although they're getting bigger so you need fewer) and it's only on when the wind is. Current grids appear able to handle ~20% electricity by wind (eg Denmark), the amount goes up as you spread them over a wider area and improve the grid. Some techs are currently very expensive though: hybrid/electric cars and solar power promise a lot for the future but right now they're expensive and not necessariyl reliable. Insulation is almost entirely a win-win situation in cold countries. Saves a lot of energy and pays back its cost in a few years. Energy saving bulbs also work out a lot cheaper. They contain tiny amounts of mercury and some people struggle with them, but these aren't major problems. There are dozens of techs!

A carbon footprint is basically how much damage you do to the environment. Everyone has one, its impossible not to, unless you floated in the air, didnt breathe or wear clothes and didnt decompose ever. Since everyone has one, everyone's differs. Its pretty much affecting the climate because some are much larger then others, because some polute more then others. Hope that cleared some stuff up. I still dont know how its really measured tho. Hope it helped anyways,