you know you should probably reduce it but what exactly is your carbon footprint [Music] a carbon footprint refers to the total amount of greenhouse gases released into the earth's atmosphere as a result of the activities of an individual or an organization remember greenhouse gases trap heat inside the atmosphere and that's overheating the planet so if you want to work out your own carbon footprint you need to know the amount of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide you're responsible for creating it's a difficult thing to measure precisely and there are different definitions about how best to calculate
it but roughly speaking there's the direct impact of using energy when we travel or to power our homes and there's the indirect impact of the energy that's used to create all the things we use or consume in the developed world in particular transport is a big part of your carbon footprint cutting down on the use of petrol or diesel cars and taking fewer flights is one of the most effective ways of reducing it the place you live also contributes to your personal footprint it's important to make sure your home is heated or cooled efficiently and
is well insulated the more you can use sustainable energy like solar or wind power the more you cut your emissions the stuff you use at home also adds to the problem all that plastic metal and cardboard takes a lot of energy to produce and dispose of so recycling can help reducing your carbon footprint but not as much as how you travel or heat and cool your home then there's your diet above all red meat makes your carbon footprint bigger because cows produce so much methane another greenhouse gas and huge numbers of trees are cut down
to create pastures on which cattle can graze in the developing world polluting stoves are a real problem too so it's important to try to replace them with more efficient methods of cooking but overall people in poorer countries produce far smaller amounts of greenhouse gases than people in richer countries do so if you look at just what a country produces the average amount of carbon dioxide emissions per person in the united states is about 16.1 tonnes per year in china it's 7.1 tonnes and in the uk it's about 5.5 tonnes but in the democratic republic of
congo it's only naught point nought three tonnes while in qatar which has a really small population but produces so much oil and gas it's 38.6 tonnes now that's just production it doesn't take account of all the other things we've talked about how much you consume but obviously the more money you have the more you tend to consume so if people in richer countries really want to reduce their carbon footprint they need to make huge changes in their lifestyles it can be done and new technologies to make things greener are coming on stream all the time
but it is a reminder that the declared aim in many countries of going carbon neutral by the middle of this century means a revolution in the way we live you
