A few interesting statistics:
In Ireland, each kWh of electricity you use emits about 600g of CO2: ESB stats
A one-way flight from Paris to Toronto emits about 0.7 tonnes of CO2 equivalent: Carbon Neutral Company (offsetting is contentious, I'm neither advocating nor criticising it, just using their calculator!)
According to the Stern report, the planet can deal with about 5 giga Tonnes of CO2 equivalent per year, giving each of us an "allowance" of roughly 750kg per year (i.e. my flight to Canada will be my entire year's fair allowance, near enough).
This Wikipedia link shows the UK average in 2007 at about 9.4 tonnes per person - 12+ times too much. Ireland is at 10.4 tonnes, while Canada is at 16.7. China is at 4.6 - of course a good chunk of this is in production for export, not for local consumption.
My own footprint? Well, this year has been rather an unusual one, but if you take my current circumstances - sharing a house, buying local food and foraging as much as possible, not owning a car... hmm, the Irish Environmental Protection Agency calculator thinks I use about 1.16 tonnes per year.
I should think I'll use a fair bit more than that. And if you factor in the travelling I did over the course of the year, I should think I'd be blushing bright red.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I don't think you should beat yourself up about the travelling; as a one-off experience valuable for the long term, that's an ecological investment.
ReplyDeleteHowever, the fact that you, in the position you are now in, still using over 50% more than the 'allowance' is more concerning; i.e. if you can't do it (and you can be bothered to try) what hope have we all got?
But how accurate is this 750kg? Sounds like it could be a bit finger-in-the-air to me. Stats on environmental effects and damage are notoriously mis-estimated, and in both directions.