Calculating your carbon footprint

In an increasingly environmentally conscious world, keeping track of our impact on the environment has become as essential to our lives as understanding the food we eat. And if the comparison seems forced, consider that Japan recently announced it would be including carbon footprint information on products, strikingly similar to existing nutritional information.

In fact, it wouldn’t be unfair to say that tracking our carbon footprint has become something of an obsession, even to the point of making consumers cautious when making any decisions at all. From energy-efficient homes to a campaign of “green” marketing campaigns so ever-present they’ve been given their own name, environmental consciousness has become a global pastime.

But with the current focus on greenhouse gas emissions, one of the most popular measures of our environmental impact is the carbon calculator. Easily accessible and simple, these electronic resources help measure the impact of your daily energy use in metric tonnes of carbon dioxide, sometimes even including a few spiffy interactive components to while your day away.

Online, there are literally thousands of resources available for calculating your energy use. It’s worth noting that many such carbon calculators, like EcoNeutral’s, are tied into carbon dioxide offset programs, with the results of your consumption bumping you to a dollar amount of offset credits. Airlines in particular, including Air Canada and WestJet, have made carbon offset credits a part of their business models, often making the credits available during the ticket purchase process.

The carbon calculator has even been taken advantage of as a political maneuver, as in the case of the Nova Scotia Conservative Party. In response to federal Liberal leader Stephane Dion’s “Green Shift” carbon tax plan, the provincial Tories posted a carbon calculator purporting to show the increased tax burden on Nova Scotians in the event of such a tax.

But not all carbon calculators are designed to sell a product or win political points.

The federal government has assembled many of the available energy calculators created by various governmental bodies on its ecoACTION website, and on provincial websites like the Ontario region’s. From appliance efficiency to vehicle idling, these calculators offer measurements of many of our most common energy consuming behaviours, albeit without the simplicity of a single set of basic questions, as with SafeClimate’s.

There are a dizzying number of factors that make up our individual carbon emissions. Broadly, for example, we already know there’s a direct relationship between wealth and our carbon footprint. In particular, we contribute to greenhouse gas emissions whenever we eat (meat or vegetables), drive or contribute to a wide range of essential Canadian industries. Together, these add up to megatonnes of CO2 emissions nationally, which may or may not eventually find its way into our atmosphere.

The bottom line is that, while knowing Canada produced 1,920 kilotonnes of CO2 emissions in forestry and agriculture in 2006 might seem like a daunting number, knowing exactly how much you personally produce is a far simpler place to begin evaluating your energy use.

Add calculators, subtract energy use. How much simpler can it be?

Carbon offsets in Ontario

Ontario has begun to put a price on carbon, and they’ve started by looking in farmers’ fields.

Based on agricultural projects, the Ontario government recently announced three new “carbon offset” programs, moving the province one step closer to a cap-and-trade system with Quebec.

Earlier in the year, the two provinces signed a “memorandum of understanding” as a first step toward an interprovincial cap-and-trade system, which would offset pollution beyond a certain level with purchased credits from projects like those recently announced. Quebec, for one, was already a member of the Western Climate Initiative (WCI), an organization of American states and Canadian provinces that has long been in discussions toward creating a cap-and-trade system, even recently releasing a set of draft guidelines (340 KB PDF) outlining the eventual agreement’s goals.

The offset projects represent three distinct ways of reducing emissions: reducing nitrogen-enriched fertilizer use, preventing its release as a greenhouse gas; employing low-till and no-till farming techniques, similarly reducing the amount of gas released from the soil; and afforestation, planting trees on deforested land that wouldn’t otherwise be used for crops.

Nationally, attempts to institute a province-spanning cap-and-trade system ran out of steam earlier at the end of 2007, though British Columbia later announced it would pursue an internal cap-and-trade policy compatible with the WCI’s.

BC’s movement toward a cap-and-trade system was also an important lesson for its energy suppliers in Alberta, showing that the voluntary nature of similar emissions trading programs may belie the fact that powerful energy alliances may ultimately make those decisions mandatory. And with Quebec and Ontario the most populous provinces in confederation, their determination toward a cap-and-trade system could well become the standard across the country.

While it may not exactly be a grassroots movement, it’s beginnings are certainly beginning in the soil.

Hydrogen 1, wetlands 0

By definition, every “eco-friendly” choice is made between several options. Electric or hydrogen? Wind or solar? The options are daunting, but sometimes the choices we make only highlight the inherent frustration in trying to make any choice at all.

For Olympic organizers, as reported by the Globe and Mail, one of those choices has already reared its ugly head — between zero-emission transportation for Vancouver’s 2010 Olympic Games and the preservation of a “red listed” wetland.

Provided by BC Transit, the 20 buses will run on hydrogen fuel cells that require liquid hydrogen (which, the Globe and Mail article points out, has to be shipped in by diesel-powered trucks). But to build the fuelling station required for the Olympic Games’ so-called “hydrogen highway,” BC Transit is looking to a site on a protected wetland that is only able to be considered because, as a provincial crown corporation, BC Transit is exempt from environmental restrictions that would otherwise halt development.

Ironically, the controversy comes as the BC government is being pressured to adopt a “green constitution” that would ensure new homes built would be carbon neutral. Far from being carbon neutral, the fueling station’s emission-free fuel would come at the expense of releasing further CO2 from the developed wetland, given that research by the United Nations has already demonstrated the CO2 storage capacity of similar areas.

As any politician mired in the current controversy over biofuels and their relationship to food (a proposition that once seemed like a win-win situation) can attest, making the “right” green choice is rarely an easy one. And as BC ramps up to one of the highest profile events on the planet, it’s worth noting that they’ll soon be attracting attention for every choice they make.

Off we go, into the wild green yonder

Though air travel began with a very light carbon footprint, it’s since become a significant source of greenhouse gas emissions, not to mention becoming vulnerable to fuel prices . Air travel doesn’t travel light, and the weight its begun to carry concerns both its airlines and customers.

Pitching lower fuel costs and higher efficiency speaks to two of the industry’s largest concerns. It isn’t surprising, then, that Bombardier’s recent announcement of its CSeries passenger planes is specifically geared toward addressing the cost of fuel and the impact of that fuel’s use. Designed to carry between 110 and 130 passengers in each plane, the line boasts 20 per cent less fuel use, and emits up to 20 per cent less CO2 and up to 50 per cent less nitrogen oxide (NO2).

But as the National Post’s finance section reported, fewer orders prove that the plane’s new features don’t necessarily make for an easy sell. Certainly, upgrades like “blended winglets” have been able to improve the efficiency of existing planes, and given the $46.7 million price tag of a new CSeries plane, airlines are understandably motivated to maintain their existing fleet first.

Buying the newer planes wouldn’t be the only way for an airline to nod to environmental concerns. Carbon offsets, now available for purchase withan airline’s tickets, are also designed to assuage the emissions released by air travel. Just another way to avoid leaving a carbon footprint in the sky.

Carbon, claims and climate change

For climatologists like Dr. James Hansen, global warming is a time-stamped threat that’s chillingly imminent. It isn’t just about accepting that global climate change is a reality, but accepting that those drastic changes will occur in our lifetime.

There’s certainly no shortage of dates circulating in the climate change ether — for example, the Kyoto Protocol calls for a reduction of overall emissions five per cent below 1990 levels by 2012, and in Canada the federal government has called for emission reductions of half by 2050, though cuts wouldn’t have to begin until 2010. For Hansen specifically, who most famously raised the issue during a sweltering Washington, DC heat wave, a critical year would be 2030, marking the end of coal-powered electricity and eventually returning carbon emissions to 1988 levels.

Like all predictions on climate change, Hansen’s depend on climate models that predict the likely effects of increased greenhouse gases.

But according to a recent article published in the scientific journal Nature, common assumptions about greenhouse gases may not hold true.

Taken at the Cape Verde Atmospheric Observatory measurements of tropospheric ozone demonstrated that the gas was being destroyed at a 50 per cent higher rate than expected. This means one large wrinkle in many climate change equations.

But as the observatory’s researchers point out in a recent article in The Globe and Mail, this hardly means it’s time to begin mass incinerations and other CO2-spewing party tricks. After all, if greenhouse gases are being destroyed at a higher rate than previously thought, that could mean that existing greenhouse gas measurements are drastically underestimating the total amount being emitted. While this new revelation may mean that the dire predictions of existing climate models are working from dated assumptions, it certainly doesn’t let the rest of us off the hook just yet.

Making the voluntary mandatory

On their surface, voluntary carbon reductions may seem like easy dodges. After all, while bodies like the Chicago Climate Exchange and the Western Climate Initiative have set laudable goals of their own (six per cent below 1998 – 2001 levels by 2010 for the CCX and 15 per cent below 2005 levels by 2020 for the WCI), all it takes to avoid abiding by their rules is, well, refusing to abide by their rules. Or does it?

As the Globe and Mail revealed last week, the WCI has found a way to extend its reach beyond its already considerable member base — seven American states and three Canadian provinces (B.C., Manitoba and Quebec), along with nine “observers” to touch some folks who, up to now, not been interested in being part of the gang.

By placing a premium on Alberta’s “dirty” coal power, the WCI would essentially be placing Alberta’s power under the initiative’s cap-and-trade approach without Alberta’s explicitly joining the initiative. And all this comes after the provinces collectively failed last year to create a binding agreement between them on carbon trading.

The WCI’s move is no idle threat, given that B.C. is a net importer of power from the largely coal-fired Alberta grid. So, while the measure will have the effect of penalizing Alberta for continuing to produce about 5,840 mega watts of coal power a year, it will also have a direct effect on the cost of B.C.’s power. It’s an added premium that bears a comparison with the increased costs of B.C.’s carbon tax.

The first in the country, the carbon tax’s express purpose is to make consumers pay the full price for the energy they use. And given the WCI’s interest in increasing the cost of Alberta’s power, it seems clear that keeping those costs contained won’t be as simple as avoiding voluntary standards (a lesson the Canadian government has already started to learn).

Hailing higher prices

Like truck drivers and airline employees, taxi drivers depend on the price of fuel for their livelihood. But, as with all Canadians, they’re also being directly affected by the rising cost of the fuel that makes their jobs possible. And as fuel costs go up, so too go taxi fares.

Toronto cab drivers recently obtained permission from the city to increase their rates, and the trend extends across the country, from Calgary to Montreal.

Depending on your ability or willingness to pay the new fees, the news could mean an added consequence of rising fuel prices (as if there needed to be another), or a trip on your city’s already taxed public transit system. But taxis aren’t the only fare-based public transportation whose costs are on the rise.

Ferries are also feeling the effects of rising fuel costs, similarly hoping to raise their fees to compensate. The potential rise in price has been enough for no less an organization than BC Ferries to call for fixed links between Canada’s west coast islands, much to the chagrin of locals who enjoy their relative isolation. And on the east coast, Nova Scotia has just committed millions to offset fuel costs and maintain existing ferry routes.

What’s clear is that consumers can’t be expected to remain insulated against the costs of high fuel prices, even when they eschew their own vehicles. The only way to hit the road without concern for fuel costs remains a long, hard walk, and even that has a carbon footprint to consider.

Walking without a carbon footprint

Does fretting about the size of your carbon footprint sometimes leave you paralyzed? If so, consider taking a deep breath. Because, after all, if you can’t walk to the grocery for fear of spewing CO2 into the atmosphere, you’ll starve before long, and corpses emit greenhouse gases of their own.

If ever there was a case study in paralyzing minutiae, it must be this article from the Montreal Gazette. Offering a calorie-counter’s obsession, Monique Beaudin draws attention to British environmentalist Chris Goodall and his book, How to Live a Low Carbon Life. One of the points made in the book, notes Beaudin, is that even a walk to the store for milk incurs the carbon footprint of milk production, making a walk for milk more harmful than a drive around the block.

But the point of Goodall’s book, as he notes in the article, wasn’t to dissuade people from walking to the supermarket, only to make them think about the issue. Unfortunately, as Beaudin’s grave headline (“Even a walk to the corner store leaves a footprint”) shows, that same awareness carries the very real threat of paralyzing committed devotees.

In a similar vein, Neil Reynolds’ “Road to hell is paved with public transit” blog entry takes a similarly breathless reading of a report suggesting that public transit, because of a relatively low percentage of ridership, actually produces more greenhouse emissions per capita than a city’s cars.

While the report’s author, Randal O’Toole, may be contending that existing patterns of use don’t always bear out transit systems, and it does bear noting that not all transit systems are created equal, it stretches credulity to suggest that “your public policy decision here appears remarkably obvious. Get people off buses and get them into cars.” Disregarding public transit is narrow-minded and short-sighted, hinging on the assumption that ridership patterns aren’t likely to change, which they already have.

The issue with both articles is that they draw huge conclusions from tiny details, the same obsessive tendencies that come from any trend rewarding obsession. As Goodall says, every action does have an environmental consequence. The danger, then, is only in snapping to judgment about how to deal with that fact, whether starving at home for fear of emitting greenhouse gases or dismantling light rail lines to build more roads.

Take a breath in, and then out again. That’s CO2 you’re emitting, by the way, which is just fine in this case.

Take me to the pilot (light)

Becoming energy-aware and taking steps to reduce our carbon-footprint doesn’t always have to break the bank. Did you know that while your home feels like a sauna and you’re roasting in 30 degree temperatures in mid-July, the gas fireplace and furnace you’ve turned down low continues to burn natural gas? Although a common mistake, not turning off the pilot light needlessly inflates your utility bill and contributes to greenhouse gas emissions.

Yup, while you’re restlessly tossing and turning at night in search of the “cool side of the pillow”, your pilot light is adding to the unwanted heat you desperately want to avoid during those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer.

According to the green living gurus at Ideal Bite, simply turning off your fireplace and furnace’s pilot light during the warm, albeit sometimes insufficiently brief, Canadian summer months can save you upwards of 50 per cent on the total gas your fireplace consumes each year, putting money back in your jeans.

Extinguishing the pilot light is just one of several simple ways to reduce your energy consumption at home. In collaboration with Natural Resources Canada, ATCO Gas provides useful pointers on better understanding your residential natural gas costs while minimizing the overall impact on our environment.

So it seems we don’t always have to fork out the big bucks to help out the environment – just a quickly doused flame can pay dividends! Pay a visit to ATCO’s EnergySense House for further details on how to save on residential gas bills in fulfilling your part to reduce energy consumption today.

Safety moment: Great care must be taken when making any adjustments to appliances or fixtures which use natural gas. Be safe! The government of Alberta has a natural gas safety brochure (36KB PDF) available for download.

Booze news you can use: the greening of vodka

Until now, good vodka need only be clear and chilled to make the casual drinker a nice martini. But, as the casual drinker becomes more environmentally aware, it seems good vodka should be a little green as well.

While our green experiences with vodka usually refers to our colour the morning after, the smart marketers at a variety of distilleries are thinking about green in other, often divergent, ways.

Today’s environmentally friendly vodka choices are varied with each brand touting its own “unique” set of green features that set it apart. So, once again, it’s up to the consumer to consider what’s a good “green” for them. Some brands offer eco-friendly packaging; others are distilled using renewable resources like geothermal, wind or solar power; and there are those who offer up carbon credits for every bottle of theirs you pull off the shelf.

Thanks to folks at If it’s hip, it’s here, navigating the emerging enviro-booze landscape is made even easier with their recent comparison of ten of the most popular green vodkas on the market. Is it just marketing-hype or is every drink you take a glass raised to mother earth? You decide. But don’t forget about the carbon footprint that bottle might make as it travels from their distillery to your freezer.

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