The Carbon Footprint--C7

Achoo, when season changes, my nose is the first to know, especially in Autumn! I'm not the only one, more and more children are facing consequences of the climate change physically, cough, cough, cough!

Everyday we turn on TV, we watch the news about the impact of climate change around the world, drought, flood, we are warned about the global warming, and we are told to take action to reduce the carbon footprint to keep our mother earth clean and healthy!

What is carbon footprint exactly? The actual footprint is the mark we leave on the environment. Imagine we walk bare feet on the beach, we see our footprints left behind. Carbon footprint (Exhibit One) means green house gases, the harmful gases we leave behind, including CO2, Methane, Nitrous Oxide and others. CO2 alone contributes 62% of planetary warming. CO2 is produced by burning fossil fuels, like oil and gas. The more fuel we use, the bigger our carbon footprint will be.

When we drive a car, the carbon doesn't just come from the engine. Think about the energy to extract the oil from underground, the pollution caused by the transportation, refinement, and the final delivery to your local petro station, not to mention the CO2 emitted to manufacture our car in the first place. We produce more green house gases than we thought.

We and everything we own has its own footprint, our book, mobile phone. Read a book, printing and distributing use energy, send a textmessage, communicating uses energy. Even the food (Exhibit Two) we eat, could have traveled hundreds of kilometers, or even thousands of pollluting kilometers to end up in our local supermarket.

We don't live in a cave now. Being it impossible to leave no carbon footprint behind, that'ss no reason for us not trying. Every person can make a difference by changing the pattern of our behaviour to reduce personal carbon footprint.

Food production and consumption are large contributors to green house gas emission. Buy locally produced food. if possible, plant vegetables in your garden. Don't waste food, the waste of food in the garbage produces harmful gases, such as methane. It's estimated that 30 to 40% of food is wasted after it leaves the farm. So, remember, plant a garden, buy local, eat the leftovers.

Tourism accounts for an estimate of 5% of global green house gas emission. An airplane travel is the most significant contributor to that percentage. How about planning your next vacation by reexploring our own city on foot? As for transportation to work, ride a bicycle, take a bus, take the MRT, instead of driving a car. Car pooling is another option to reduce the carbon footprint. Acquire electricity saving habits, turn off lights after you leave home. In summer, while cooling offices and homes, turn up one or two degrees. Likewise, in winter, wear warmer clothes to turn down the heater one or two degrees.

Making informed choices about transportation, food, and energy used at home is what we can do individually to reduce the carbon footprints. Start from today, mark smaller carbon footprints (Exhibit Three) day in and day out. Let's take a boot in reducing the carbon footprint to combat climate change and global warming!