Carbon Footprinting

Last week we all calculated our 'carbon footprints': that is the number of tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions that we are personally responsible for per year. The estimates of my footprint varied between 5.17 tonnes and 8,08 tonnes depending upon which calculator I used (I would recommend http://footprint.wwf.org.uk). This would seem to be quite a variation, bearing in mind that I was entering very similar data about my lifestyle into each calculator. This inaccuracy is one of the main criticisms of carbon calculators (see Padgett et al, 2008, 'a comparison of carbon calculators), and it results from the different estimates and assumptions calculators make about externalities - for example, the emissions resulting from the creation and transport of the goods we buy - and about our lifestyles - for example, how we heat our houses. The user of a carbon calculator is also forced to make many estimates and approximations, and I may have been hundreds of miles out in my estimates of how far I have travelled by bus and by car over the last 12 months. 


But does this inaccuracy and lack of transparency really matter? I personally found the exercise useful as it forced me to examine each aspect of my life, from how I heat my house to my shopping habits, separately and consider the carbon dioxide emissions each activity caused. Whether my actual footprint is 5.17 or 8.08 tonnes, it is simply too big (it is thought that around 3 tonnes would be equitable and sustainable). If everybody in the world lived like me, we would need at least 1.5 planets to cope with it. Furthermore, it is just as difficult to quantify any savings that I could make on my carbon footprint, for example by only buying local produce or cycling more; therefore the most important thing is not the exact figures, rather it is the principle that I personally produce too much carbon dioxide. Thus calculating my carbon footprint has spurred me into action. Some carbon calculators also offered tips in how I could reduce my footprint. It wasn't that I hadn't heard most of this advice before, but the act of calculating my own carbon footprint personalised the problem by highlighting my individual contribution. 


Of course, carbon footprints are not the be all and end all; it would be better for me to try to calculate a more holistic ecological footprint, which considers other ecological impacts such as water pollution or habitat destruction. And what about the social impact of my lifestyle? The danger with focusing too much on carbon footprints is that we don't consider the tricky trade-offs between buying the Fairtrade bananas that have been air-freighted from half-way around the world, or buying the tomatoes which have been grown locally in a heated greenhouse, or buying the organic apples freighted from eastern Europe. Perhaps carbon footprints also unfairly place too much emphasis on the individual, who in reality is constrained by factors like infrastructure and social context, and on whose behalf the government contributes carbon dioxide emissions. Therefore carbon footprints could depoliticise the issue of carbon dioxide emissions and environmental degradation by simply presenting it in an instrumental and technical manner which doesn't examine the underlying reasons why we live as we do.