What is pop­u­larly referred to as a person’s (or business’s) car­bon foot­print is a mea­sure of the impact our activ­i­ties have on the envi­ron­ment, espe­cially rel­a­tive to cli­mate change. It relates to the amount of green­house gases, par­tic­u­larly car­bon diox­ide, pro­duced in our day-to-day lives through such things as burn­ing fos­sil fuels for elec­tric­ity, heat­ing and transportation.

Reduc­ing your car­bon foot­print pro­vides an imme­di­ate pos­i­tive impact on cli­mate change by reduc­ing the amount of green­house gases released into the atmos­phere. Lower your car­bon foot­print and you directly effect cli­mate change – for the better.

To cal­cu­late your car­bon foot­print, check EPA’s web­site: http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/emissions/ind_calculator.html. To find out more about the impacts of green­house gases and what can be done to reduce them, one place to start is in the Cli­mate Change sec­tion of the Green Cen­tral Sta­tion website.

To learn about the many sim­ple ways we can all make a dif­fer­ence in our daily lives, check out the slideshows below, cre­ated by Rose Wal­lace.  Rose com­piled the infor­ma­tion about reduc­ing our car­bon foot­prints while work­ing on her Girl Scout Gold Award. She is a mem­ber of Girl Scout Troop #128 in Elli­cott City and attends Cen­ten­nial High School.  Rose pre­sented this infor­ma­tion along with per­form­ing car­bon foot­print cal­cu­la­tions at our annual Howard County Green­Fest in 2011.  Thanks for shar­ing your info and con­grat­u­la­tions on your Gold Award, Rose!

Sav­ing Energy in the Home

Energy Effi­cient Transportation

Sus­tain­able Food