This video explains the concept of a carbon footprint, detailing how it's calculated, why reducing it is important, and practical methods for doing so. It highlights that a carbon footprint is the amount of CO2 equivalent released into the atmosphere due to our activities and can be calculated for individuals, products, and more. The video also touches on carbon offsetting, its limitations, and emphasizes addressing the root causes of emissions through lifestyle changes and systemic action.
Hello everyone, I'm Alex. This is a clean carbon. So technically, it's a carbon footprint, right? Well, kind of... In this video, we will explain what a carbon footprint actually means, how it's calculated, why we should reduce it, and how to reduce it with many examples. Okay, let's start drawing! In the previous video, I explained what our ecological footprint is. In short, it's how much land and water area we need to produce the resources we use and absorb our waste. Here's a link to the video, if you haven't watched it. One resource we use a lot is carbon, mostly from burning fossil fuels. [Now, this is a cute drawing, but this is really HOW fossil fuel extraction looks like nowadays]. When we do this, greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide are formed. There are other greenhouse gases too, but to keep it simple and comparable, we account for them as CO2 equivalents. So, part of our ecological footprint is actually our carbon footprint: it's the amount of CO2 equivalent that is released into the atmosphere as a result of our activities. In my case, about half of my ecological footprint is carbon, and globally, it's about 60%. We can also calculate the carbon footprint of the world, a country, a business, an individual, an event, a product, and more. For example, when we travel by a vehicle that burns fossil fuels, it obviously releases carbon into the atmosphere. If I use an electric car, the question is: how is the electricity produced? In the US and China, for example, the two countries with the largest carbon footprint, about 65% of electricity is produced from fossil fuels, so there's a high chance the electric car generates a lot of CO2. But I'm already going into how to calculate the carbon footprint, so how is it done? Well, you'll need a pen, a notepad, a calculator – no, I'm kidding... Calculating your carbon footprint is like many other things nowadays – there's a website for it. If you're in the US, I recommend this one. If you're in the UK, I recommend this one. If you're somewhere else, I recommend this one. You actually enter how much energy is needed to heat your home, how much you drive and fly, how much money you spend on food, clothes, technology, investments, etc., and the machine behind converts everything into the corresponding metric tons of CO2 equivalent. By summing all of this up in the end, you'll get your carbon footprint. Mine is 8.63. It's significantly lower than the average for Canada, where I live, but you can see that it's significantly higher than the world's average and, more importantly, than the world's goal. Where does this goal come from? The scientific community agrees that when we use fossil fuels, they release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, which leads to an increase in its temperature. Over the last century, we've emitted so many greenhouse gases that the Earth is getting warmer than it has been in the last 400,000 years (this has been established by drilling ice cores in Antarctica, which is a topic for another video, if you like). Therefore, we need to reduce our emissions, which means we need to reduce our carbon footprint. How can we achieve that? One option is carbon offsetting. This means paying a certain amount of money depending on your emissions, which will go to a program designed to reduce the same amount of carbon emissions somewhere in the world: by planting trees, building a wind farm, a solar power plant, etc. When you calculate your carbon footprint, some calculators give you a link to offset your carbon emissions. If I choose this one, for example, offsetting my carbon emissions for the whole year would cost me less than 100 Canadian dollars. Great deal, right! But here's the problem: planting trees doesn't make airplanes fly. YET! So offsetting doesn't keep fossil fuels (carbon) in the ground. It just shifts the problem onto another project somewhere else in the world, while we continue to extract them. In a way, it's like killing pandas and donating money to WWF to protect them. Carbon offsets should be seen as a great way to fund tree-planting and renewable energy projects around the world. NOT as a long-term solution. The best way to reduce my carbon footprint is to tackle the root causes of it, so that carbon isn't extracted at all. I can live in a smaller house, improve its insulation, heat it with geothermal energy, for example, use less electricity, have more of my electricity produced from renewable sources, walk and cycle, drive less, and when I drive, use a very efficient car, maybe an electric car, considering that the electricity is mostly water where I live, fly less, eat less meat, especially beef, which generates a lot of carbon emissions. And finally, a topic we don't talk about often: be smart in my investments, meaning with the money I give to financial institutions through my mortgage and insurance products. Why? Because most banks and financial organizations invest my money in... fossil fuels. According to carbonfootprint.com, if I reduce my mortgage, it will reduce my total annual carbon footprint by 2 metric tons, meaning by 20% of my total carbon footprint! And finally, according to a 2020 report published by UNEP, the 10% of the population earning the most money have almost the same collective carbon footprint as the remaining 90%, so our whole system is dysfunctional, and ultimately the best way to reduce our carbon footprint is to take action and vote for those who will help create the new systems we need. If you've also calculated your carbon footprint and feel comfortable sharing it, write in the comments below how much it is and what you're doing to reduce it. I hope this video was helpful. If you want to help me create more free videos like this one, you can do so on Patreon, by donating any amount of your choice, which will apply to every new video I publish. It takes 5 minutes and you can cancel anytime. If not, that's okay too. Subscribe and click on the bell to get notified whenever I publish new videos. Thanks to all the donors who make these videos possible, and thanks for watching!
