How Much Carbon Do I Emit?

Anyone who is curious about finding out how much carbon they emit can find many different sites on the internet that offer a way of calculating the amount of emissions they create in their daily life, with a quick search engine query. There are sites that offer a step by step guide on how to calculate the emissions as well as sites that offer mathematical equations that take the amount of electricity a household uses and converts it into the amount of emissions created by the use; however, there are three major carbon emitters that everyone should be aware about. These three major carbon emitters should always be taken into account when calculating carbon emissions because they are what largely contribute to greenhouse gases in the atmosphere on a daily basis.

Air travel is an exceptionally guilty greenhouse gas emitter because of the huge amount of fuel that it requires. Just think about how much fuel one airliner requires to go from point “a” to point “b” and then multiply that by the hundreds of aircraft that are in the air each day. In fact, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change believes that aviation is responsible for nearly four percent of all green house gas emissions in the world.

Cars, especially larger trucks require lots of fuel to run each day. Think about how much gasoline it takes to run the car each day, how often a person has to fill their tank up and then multiply that by the millions of other vehicles being used all around the world each day. In fact, in many places emissions created by all types of vehicles appear to account for about fifty percent or more of all greenhouse gas emissions in the air.

A house is constantly pumping greenhouse gases in the air. The size of the house and the energy conservation methods of the people living in the home determine its greenhouse gas emissions. The use of electricity for all the appliances and electronics in the home, as well as for the heating and cooling can often contribute a large amount of greenhouse gases in the air because of the fossil fuels being burned in order to create the energy being used. While it is difficult to determine how much a home can contribute to carbon emissions it is certainly recognized as a major contributor, especially when the tenants or homeowners don’t take the steps to conserve energy.