Carbon Footprint

When people talk about clean energy, they usually relate it to a term called carbon footprint. What is actually meant by carbon footprint? Is it your footprints made from carbon?

Well, it has actually some relations in it. A person’s carbon footprint is the trace or amount of carbon one releases into the air in a certain amount of time. It can also be considered as the amount of Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions one produces over an amount of time. One of the main traces of carbon is by breathing. In the process of breathing a person inhales oxygen, uses internal ‘combustion’ to get energy, and exhales CO2 (carbon dioxide).

However, a person’s carbon footprint is not only the carbon it produces but also the carbon it generates by using equipments and doing activities. By using electric generated equipment, a person generates a higher carbon footprint since electricity is generated in power plants that produces high carbon waste (especially coal powered power plants). Doing certain activites such as smoking, burning waste, burning down trees also produces a lot of carbon into the air.

The effect of these high carbon footprints will destroy the nature and ecosystem, since trees and other green plants are not able to process them all. Therefore, the excess carbon will be hanging in the air, inhaled again by people, but the worse is that it absorbs heat from the sun (the glasshouse effect).

So, the question is how do we prevent this high personal carbon footprint? There are several techniques how to reduce them:

1. Try to save energy. By saving energy, you reduce your carbon footprint, and you save also money.

2. Try to use clean/renewable energy such as solar or wind energy. These kinds of energy produces a little amount of carbon footprint (only during the making of these equipments).

3. Do not burn things. Avoid smoking, burning trees, paper and other waste.

4. Plant trees so that it can process the amount of carbon in the air into good fresh oxygen.

Hope these tricks can help you reduce your personal carbon footprint. If you are not able to do the tips above, there is always a last option: hold your breath for as long as possible!