Carbon Footprint Calculators
Posted by Lisa Haderlein at 7/14/2007 12:36 PM 
Categories: Global Warming, Travel, Recycle, Windows, carbon dioxide
Categories: Global Warming, Travel, Recycle, Windows, carbon dioxide
I was talking to a friend the other day, and he was unaware of the Live Earth concerts that took place July 7th. He just doesn't watch as much TV as I do - lucky him!
I mentioned that the companion website has a nice carbon calculator with it, so not only can you pledge to reduce your carbon emissions in certain specific ways, but you can actually establish a baseline CO2 footprint, and over time measure how your actions affect the CO2 bottom line.
He had not yet seen a carbon calculator - which actually shocked me because he is younger than I am (by probably 10 years), is environmentally active, and he seems very computer/Internet savvy. I guess not everyone is as obsessed with this stuff as I am. At any rate, I just emailed him several calculators, which gave me the idea of posting a few of them here for easy access by anyone interested in finding out what their emissions look like.
First, the Live Earth calculator: http://www.earthlab.com/carbonProfile/LiveEarth.htm?ver=13
It takes about 3 minutes, and uses information like your monthly utility bill average payments, type of car driven and average annual mileage, to estimate your impact.
Next, the calculator from the Inconvenient Truth website:
http://www.climatecrisis.net/takeaction/carboncalculator/
I mentioned that the companion website has a nice carbon calculator with it, so not only can you pledge to reduce your carbon emissions in certain specific ways, but you can actually establish a baseline CO2 footprint, and over time measure how your actions affect the CO2 bottom line.
He had not yet seen a carbon calculator - which actually shocked me because he is younger than I am (by probably 10 years), is environmentally active, and he seems very computer/Internet savvy. I guess not everyone is as obsessed with this stuff as I am. At any rate, I just emailed him several calculators, which gave me the idea of posting a few of them here for easy access by anyone interested in finding out what their emissions look like.
First, the Live Earth calculator: http://www.earthlab.com/carbonProfile/LiveEarth.htm?ver=13
It takes about 3 minutes, and uses information like your monthly utility bill average payments, type of car driven and average annual mileage, to estimate your impact.
Next, the calculator from the Inconvenient Truth website:
http://www.climatecrisis.net/takeaction/carboncalculator/
Finally, here is one from a website that is actually named carbonfootprint.com - I figure it must be pretty good because of the name, but I haven't actually used the calculator! http://www.carbonfootprint.com/USA/calculator.html The reason I haven't completed their survey is because you need to know the number of kilowatt hours you use in a year. For that reason alone, I figure their results must be pretty accurate. When I remember to bring the electric bill with me to the computer, I'll use their calculator and let you know how it compares to the others!
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