What is your carbon footprint? lots of calculators, take your pick: Carbonfund calculator (mine was 11.28 tons per year) Carbonfund.org (mine was 12.4 tons per year) or here: My footprint org (I got 15 tons per year) {this one includes food impact.} How much did your Prius reduce your impact? Carbonfund.org shows I reduced my foot print from 12.69 to 11.28 tons per year when I stopped driving a 34 mpg vehicle. The first two sites ask for your actual consumption of electricity and gas, and the actual mpg of your vehicle - which makes the estimate more 'individual'.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(oxnardprof @ Mar 31 2007, 07:11 PM) [snapback]415667[/snapback]</div> Let me say that these calculators seem to have a conflict of interest. They are trying to sell "carbon offsets" which are a fund raising scam. People who feel guilty about their life style buy these to feel better about their behavior. There are two ways to reduce pollution: Make a point of individually producing less pollution. Encourage world-wide population control (fewer people = less polution). If we don't do either (especially the second), mother nature (or warfare) will find a way to do the second for us. JeffD
Carbonfund: 11.27 (Single person. I went with the average default they supplied as I don't know my gas or electric for a year. I'll bet theirs is higher than what I really use.) Lexington: 6.11 None of them asked me if I use compact fluorescents. Or if I recycle. Earth day quiz: Average 24 mine 19 So if everyone lived like me we'd need 4.2 earths. I think we should get everyone with a higher average than me to reduce theirs to at least mine. Then we can work from there.
I got 15 on the carbonfund calculator and 14 on the earthday quiz. I'm a fat American. The Prius seemed to bring my carbonfund score down by about 4 (using 45 mpg vs 20 mpg, fairly close to the actual values between the Prius and the car it replaced). I didn't get too accurate with the numbers but the carbonfund calculator is definitely geared toward providing you with excessive overestimates in the hopes of guilt-tripping you into paying for a carbon offset.
