Carbon Footprint

Carbon dioxide from human activity is one of the main greenhouse gasses causing climate change. This means we have an ethical duty to reduce our carbon footprint. To do so, estimating your personal carbon footprint, and knowing how much each activity you do is contributing to your carbon footprint, is helpful. This is easy to do and this page goes through some details.

Carbon emissions are abbreviated as CO₂e. For example, the number of metric tons of CO₂e, or kg of CO₂e, is a measure of pollution. (1 ton = 1000kg)

There are many carbon footprint calculators online; for example, I used this one. The below information will also help you get a more accurate estimate for certain actions.

For an individual to determine whether they've done "enough" to reduce their carbon footprint, they would need to consider these numbers:

• The total human carbon emissions as of 2022 is about 37 billion tons of CO₂e per year. (Source)
• This means the average carbon footprint for an individual as of 2022 was about 4.7 tons of CO₂e per year. (Same source.)
• If it were the case that climate change is caused only by big polluting companies rather than individuals, then an ordinary person should have a carbon footprint of much less than that average. So do the calculation and check whether you do.
• The average carbon footprint of a Canadian as of 2022 was about 14.2 tons CO₂e per year. So we in rich countries have a long way to go!

So What Activities Cause Carbon Emissions?

For individuals living ordinary lives, there are 5 big areas to consider:

1. Burning Gasoline
2. Shopping
3. Food
4. Electricity Usage
5. Internet Usage

Note that if you're following the Early Retirement Extreme philosophy, you'll already be doing a lot to reduce your carbon footprint, so some tips from there apply here too.

Burning Gasoline:

Burning 1 gallon of gasoline = 0.00889 metric tons CO₂e (Source)

So to determine the emissions for driving a gas-powered car, check the mileage of your car and the distance you drive. For example, if your mileage is 48 kilometers per gallon, and you drive 10000km in one year, then the calculation is:

(10000km / 48km/gallon) * 0.00889 metric tons/gallon = 1.852 tons CO2e

This calculation can also be applied to lawnmowers, snowblowers, etc. For example, based on this website, a lawnmower that burns about 0.59 gallons per hour would produce 0.59 * 0.00889 = 0.0052451 metric tons CO₂e per hour. I compared that to a 1440W electric lawnmower, which (depending on where you live and your power company) might produce about 1.44 * 0.000481 metric tons per kWh = 0.00069264 metric tons CO₂e. That's more than 7 times less pollution for electric! So, if you must mow your lawn, using electric instead of gas can make a huge difference, and I'd guess this is similar for other gas-powered machines.

Travel: Travelling can have a big carbon footprint. For example, I checked 3 methods of travelling from Fredericton to Toronto and back using the calculator, and these were the results (as of 2015):

• Plane: 0.22 tons CO₂e
• Train: 0.02 tons CO₂e to go about the same distance (2000km). (There's no train in Fredericton.)
• Car: 0.34 tons CO₂e

Shopping:

Goods are made in factories and materials may come from mining, deforestation, or industrial processes, then are transported to you. All this causes carbon emissions. It's difficult to estimate how much, so use the carbon footprint calculator according to your lifestyle. Reducing the amount of stuff you buy, especially single-use products, definitely has a big impact on your carbon footprint.

Food:

In addition to transportation and water use, farming of animals in particular requires cutting down trees to meet the current demand for meat. A lot of food is also made by machines that pollute. It's difficult to estimate your exact footprint from food, so use the estimate from the carbon footprint calculator based on your lifestyle. Reducing consumption of meat/dairy, processed and unhealthy/unnecessary food, fast food, and avoiding food waste does have a big impact.

Electricity Usage:

Energy use is measured in kWh (kilowatt hours) on your power bill. 1kWh means the energy used by running a 1000 watt device for 1 hour.

The carbon footprint of 1kWh varies depending on your power company and how it gets its energy. If you live somewhere that uses more coal or oil power plants, the carbon footprint of electricity will be greater.

The world average, as of 2023, is 0.000481 tons CO₂e per kWh, or 481 gCO₂e. (Source)

Canada is better than the world average, at 170 gCO₂e per kWh, according to the same source.

You can find out the specific carbon footprint of electricity for your province (if you live in Canada) from this site. It shows that the number for NB is 280 gCO₂e per kWh, worse than Canada but better than the world average.

So you can calculate your specific electricity carbon footprint by using the kWh numbers from your power bill. For example, if you use 10000kWh of electricity per year and live in NB, that's 10000 kWh * 0.000280 tons CO₂e / kWh = 2.8 metric tons CO₂e.

To reduce your electricity usage and thereby your carbon footprint, it helps to have an idea of how much electricity different devices use. You can measure their wattage using an energy meter you can borrow from the library (or from me). Here are some numbers I found for various devices (as of 2015), arranged approximately from most energy to least energy:

• Heat: For a mini-home, it used about 6000kWh per year (without a heat pump). A heat pump cut that number in half. This varies a lot depending on insulation and what you keep the temperature at, so insulate and keep the thermostat low to reduce this number. You can get an energy audit on your home which will then tell you the most effective rennovations / upgrades to do; for example, here is the program for NB.
• Air Conditioning: About 3000W-5000W for a traditional one. Heat pumps are better, and if it's a hot, humid day, using the dehumidify mode of a heat pump (or a dehumidifier), as well as opening windows at night and closing windows and blinds in the day, can be sufficient to keep it comfortable.
• Hot Water: I found that approximately 5 gallons = 1kWh, and an 8 min shower takes about 10 gallons (source).
• Fridge: Mine used about 1kWh in one day, but over a 7 day period used 5.41kWh. This varies a fair bit with the season, how much you open it, etc.
• Laundry: If you only use cold water, about 0.3 kWh per load. If you use hot water, about 4.5kWh per load.
• Cooking: 1000W for a stovetop element.
• Instant Pot: 0.13kWh to run for 5 min to make porridge with 1c water and 0.5 c oats (about 1000W while heating up, then about 0W).
• Induction Plate: 0.04kWh for 5 min at level 3, also used to make oatmeal (so much less than instant pot for that). To make bannock bread, it took about the same as a traditional heating element - 0.15kWh for induction plate vs. 0.14kWh for traditional heating element.
• Computer: 100W + 50W for monitor for desktop computer. 30W for laptop, 15W for netbook.
• TV: 60W
• Lights: About 10W with LED bulbs

Peak Energy: If you get your energy from a power company, the concept of peak energy can be important to your carbon footprint. This means that people use more energy at certain times of the day (such as in the morning when getting ready for work), and therefore different kinds of power plants may be activated at those times. For example, in NB, NB Power burns oil to accommodate peak demand, even though they take a financial loss from burning oil. So, for example, if you can delay having a shower until non-peak hours, you can prevent the burning of fossil fuels.

Living Situation: The size and design of your house or apartment makes a big difference in energy usage and carbon footprint. this article compares the footprint of living in a house vs. an apartment and shows that apartments generally have a much lower footprint than houses. This shouldn't be surprising; they're generally much smaller and share some walls with other apartments, so the heat lost through those walls isn't wasted, and heat, as shown above, takes a huge amount of energy. Where to live is very possibly the most significant environmental choice you'll ever make.

Internet Usage:

Though running a computer itself might not use much electricity, internet usage can and does have a big footprint. It's difficult to calculate your exact carbon footprint from internet use, but this article estimates the average person's footprint at about 414kg (0.414 tons) CO₂e, which is significant, and in total is comparable to the airline industry.

This happens because of the computers and infrastructure that companies build to provide internet services, as well as to track and mine their users' personal data. Browsing to static websites that don't track you, like this one, has a low impact, but things like doomscrolling, streaming, and cloud storage use a lot of resources. Emails and other messages can also add up because they're stored on servers and processed by many computers and tracking algorithms.

Of course, the internet is useful, and accomplishing something online if it prevents you from travelling to meet in person is usually better. But there are several things we can do to reduce our internet carbon footprint, such as:

• Avoid doomscrolling and unnecessary internet use.
• Avoid registering for sites unnecessarily. Delete online accounts you don't need.
• Keep personal files on your own computer instead of using cloud services (making sure to back up your local files, which you need to do anyway). I'm a big fan of Syncthing which is free software that lets you sync files between devices without using cloud services.
• Unsubscribe from needless email newsletters, and avoid signing up for them or giving out your email address unnecessarily.
• Download your emails every once in a while (and then back them up), and delete them from your email account to save cloud storage space. If they're unimportant emails, just delete them right away.
• Avoid chatting through messages, instead saving chatting for in person meetups. More generally, keep activities that belong offline offline.
• Get DVDs / discs from the library instead of signing up for streaming services.
• Download music, and other files you'll access multiple times, and enjoy them offline instead of streaming them or repeatedly accessing the same site.
• Use an adblocker and tracking blocker to reduce the resources used to transfer and collect data.

Other Specific Actions:

Wood Stoves:

The carbon footprint of wood stoves is trickier because in one sense they produce a lot of carbon emissions, but in another sense they're "carbon neutral". That is, if the wood were left to decompose instead of being burned, the carbon would eventually be released into the atmosphere through decomposition anyway, and then if a tree is planted in its place it would be absorbed back into the new tree. But this process would take about 50-100 years. Burning it puts it into the atmosphere sooner. Oil has been in the ground for millions of years, and once it's in the atmosphere it wouldn't become oil again for millions more.

However, given the immediacy of climate change, a strong argument could still be made that putting the carbon in wood into the atmosphere 50 years sooner is still a big problem. I personally take this stance, and believe that a heat pump is a better choice for heating, unless you live in a place where electricity has a very high carbon footprint.

Planting Trees:

Planting trees reduces your carbon footprint, because trees convert carbon dioxide in the atmosphere into oxygen, and thereby fight climate change.

This site gives a value of 10kg CO₂e removed from the air per year per tree during its first 20 years of life. Of course, older trees will absorb more, but since climate change is here now, the amount removed in the near future is a good number to use.

For example, if you plant 15 trees, which can be done in an afternoon of planting, that's 150kg or 0.15 metric tons CO₂e reduced.

Keep in mind, tree planting alone can't solve climate change, because there isn't enough land to plant enough trees to offset the amount of pollution that humans are producing. Reducing pollution and protecting the existing trees is still the first priority.

Solar Panels:

Solar panels do cause carbon emmissions to produce, but that gets offset after about 2-3 years, and their lifetime is about 25-30 years (Source).

But another interesting thing from that article is that nuclear, hydro and wind have an even lower carbon footprint than solar. So solar panels on your house is a good environmental choice if it's replacing coal or oil, but not if your power company is already getting all its energy from those other sources.

For solar panels in NB (Canada), a grid-tied system with Net Metering is the most environmentally-friendly choice, because it doesn't require batteries and batteries have an environmental impact.