Carbon Footprints: Which is Worse?

Posted by at Feb 1st, 2010 in Climate Change

Filed under: Climate Change

Hamburgers or Hummers? Photo: fox_kiyo , Flickr

As the world becomes more environmentally conscious, we’re all paying more attention to our carbon footprint. Measuring carbon footprints is complicated — different items are measured on different scales, and many of the measurements are based on research that weighs varied criteria.

When determining a carbon footprint, we must look at both the primary footprint that can be controlled (such as how much oil we use and how often we wash our clothes). We must also consider the secondary footprint, which is the amount of energy that is used to make the oil and water available to us. Still, it is interesting to compare different aspects of our lives to see what has the greatest negative impact on the earth.

Hamburgers vs Hummers: If you were going to compare the carbon footprints of eating meat versus driving an SUV, you might look at the carbon study of a hamburger by Jamais Cascia. According to the study, America’s consumption of hamburgers leads to 941 to 1023 pounds of greenhouse gas per year. It is believed that eating hamburgers is equivalent to 7,500 or 15,000 large vehicles. Compare the average of habit of 150 hamburgers a year to the yearly footprint of a Hummer and you get an average of 56 kilograms of carbon emissions versus 11.1 tons of CO2. It’s a good thing we don’t eat Hummers, but even better that every hamburger eating American does not drive a Hummer.

Owning a Dog vs Having a Baby: There has been a good deal of recent murmuring that dog ownership is not earth friendly. Apparently, having a medium sized dog had an yearly footprint of 2.07 acres of land. The footprint of owning a single dog has often been compared to owning two 4X4 SUVs. Dog ownership has also been equated to 596 lbs of CO2 emissions a year. A baby, on the other hand, has a much larger footprint due to the processing of diapers, water, power, garbage disposal, and cleaning detergents. Under normal conditions, a baby will use up to 45,000 lbs of CO2 a year . Dog owners will probably feel vindicated, and new parents won’t care.

Using a Computer vs Paper: Using a Macbook for a point of reference, these light-weight laptops use about 115 kilograms of CO2 a year. You might think that because 500 sheets paper produce about 4.59 lbs of CO2 a year, that paper would have a much smaller footprint. However, if you looked at the space that 2000 documents takes up on a computer versus the space the documents take up on a desk, and in file cabinets, the answer of who has the bigger footprint is clear. In addition, with the loss of trees and electricity (15 watt-hours per sheet of paper) used to make paper, it is clear that technology wins. Carbon Footprints: Which is Worse? originally appeared on Green Daily on Mon, 01 Feb 2010 11:00:00 EST . Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

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Carbon Footprints: Which is Worse?

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