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One issue I run in to when calculating carbon emissions is that we
heat with passive solar and wood. Our household of 4 buys
electricity generated by wind (about 11,000 kwh/yr for everything --
hot water, summer AC, entertainment, lights, computers, etc). We
use a small amount (5 gallons) of propane each month as cooking
fuel. <br>
<br>
What's the goal we should be shooting for? i.e. is there a "Kyoto
Protocol allowance" per household or per capita?<br>
<br>
One thing we don't do is fly. Nobody in our household has flown
anywhere for years and we've pretty much stopped long distance road
trips too. I sometimes go to Tulsa or to my hometown in southwest
Oklahoma, so we are operating in about a 130 mile radius of our
home. One car for 3 adults, 1 kid. Kid gets to walk to school
every day. We seem to be losing the desire to travel, lol. I wrote
a friend of mine who is a cloistered Benedictine monk about that and
he replied, "This increased stability in your life is a sign of
increased sanity."<br>
<br>
Thanks for raising this issue and sharing your resources.<br>
<br>
Bob Waldrop, Oklahoma City<br>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 1/26/2016 1:50 PM, conservation
architect wrote:<br>
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<div>I hope the great minds of this list are still out there.
</div>
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<div>I am on the Unity with Nature committee of Baltimore
Yearly Meeting, a regional Quaker group with Meetings in VA,
MD, PA, &WV. We are wanting to promote our members
calculating their personal footprint to give witness to our
own actions. However, I am challenged to find an accurate
way to do this. I hope list participants can contribute. </div>
<div> </div>
<div>Tracking our own carbon footprint is a form of witness to
the impact of our own actions. I have not spent much time
on these calculators. However, I do see it similar to the
programs that assess house energy efficiency. Some
components of heat loss are straight math. Where as an
assessment of how much the use of energy star appliances
saves you is very fuzzy. When the program has an internal
judgment of the impact of the information entered in the
form, we are left to trust that unknown metric. </div>
<div> </div>
<div>Using most of the calculators requires that we gather the
information in form from which they make judgment about the
impact. Can we ourselves structure our own records to
provide us with the information needed to calculate our
carbon footprint. Some information must be extrapolated.
However, some information does not. The cool climate
calculator <a moz-do-not-send="true"
title="http://coolclimate.berkeley.edu/calculator"
href="http://coolclimate.berkeley.edu/calculator">http://coolclimate.berkeley.edu/calculator</a>
will ask you what kind of car you use in general terms and
miles driven and make an assumption of how much gas you
burned. However, if we wrote down the amount of gas in
volume, that would very accurately reflect our carbon
emissions with fewer assumptions. Instead of asking how
much money we spend on electricity, we can enter how many
kilowatt hours we consume from our bills. Some mix from the
power company sources would be helpful on the
extrapolation. That would be more challenging, but more
useful. </div>
<div> </div>
<div>Travel on airlines would depend on actual distances,
number of take offs and landings. I did find a airline
specific calculator that offers a line for connecting
flights, often greatly increasing the actual miles over the
actual distance to the destination. </div>
<div>This link is a air travel specific calculator that
accounts for non direct flights. <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://calculator.carbonfootprint.com/calculator.aspx?tab=3">http://calculator.carbonfootprint.com/calculator.aspx?tab=3</a></div>
<div> </div>
<div>The cool climate calculator only ask what area of your
house is. This general assumption that square foot size of
a house can determine the carbon footprint pretty much puts
the whole result in doubt. This largest component of
energy use has a huge variation. </div>
<div> </div>
<div> </div>
<div>There are huge variations between real carbon emissions
and the assumptions that they use to come up with a number.
If we actually entered the natural gas, coal, propane,
kerosene purchased, we would get an accurate carbon number
for those components. This bypasses the judgment of how
efficient your car, home is with a precise number of the
result. </div>
<div> </div>
<div>However, it is necessary to extrapolate secondary carbon
footprint for the embedded energy in the products we
consume. This is more difficult. </div>
<div> </div>
<div>Food is another large area of impact that is difficult to
extrapolate. <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.foodemissions.com/foodemissions/Calculator.aspx">http://www.foodemissions.com/foodemissions/Calculator.aspx</a>
This calculator is very detailed, requiring each item of
food be entered. Much more tedious. However, much more
likely to be accurate. </div>
<div> </div>
<div>Establishing a metric where the assumptions are
understood would add transparency and integrity to the
process. How to do this is a challenge. </div>
<div>Can we find a process that is clear enough for us to
share and promote? </div>
<div>Can we rely on the internal metrics of calculators
provided online?</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Thank you for making it to the end of this long note.</div>
<div>This link is a air travel specific calculator that
accounts for non direct flights. </div>
<div><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://calculator.carbonfootprint.com/calculator.aspx?tab=3">http://calculator.carbonfootprint.com/calculator.aspx?tab=3</a></div>
<div> </div>
<div>Detailed food calculator:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.foodemissions.com/foodemissions/Calculator.aspx">http://www.foodemissions.com/foodemissions/Calculator.aspx</a></div>
<div> </div>
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