Carbon footprint

Just like we leave footprints in the sand, our actions leave footprints in the environment. One of those footprints is how much carbon dioxide or CO2 is emitted by the combustion of fossil fuels to support our daily lives. Carbon Dioxide is a major component of the Greenhouse Gasses warming our planet. By being aware of our Carbon Footprint we can begin to reduce it and thereby reduce our impact on the planet.

Carbon footprints can be calculated for certain activities (flying from here to Delhi on a commercial jet, driving 20 miles in the family car, boating the afternoon away in our family boat, and other activities). Our total impact on the environment is the sum of all those events, plus the utilities in our home, the food we eat (farmed), the impact of shipping many of the goods we consume, and the packaging of those goods. Several studies place the average American's CO2 emissions at about 20 tons a year (110 pounds a day). With some thought and careful choices we can significantly reduce our carbon footprint.

Getting places

1. Consider reducing the number of trips you take by habit.
2. Consider car pooling.
3. Consider using your bike, feet, or mass transportation for most transportation needs
4. Consider purchasing a Hybrid vehicles, or more efficient car..
5. Purchase radial tires and keep them properly inflated
6. Drive during non-peak hours If you avoid heavy traffic you will not spend a significant amount of gas during stops.
7. "The shortest distance between two points is a straight line" Keep that in mind while driving. Plan out your trips accordingly. Indeed some trips may be "slower" due to lane speeds, but less time on the road is less gas. More money in your pocket and less damage to the environment.
8. Know when to turn the car off The best way to warm up a modern car is to drive it. Idling hurts engines, wastes gas, and contributes to global warming and pollution.

You can offset some your remaining boat carbon foot print by reducing the carbon footprint of other activities during your boating outings:

• Avoid spilling gasoline.
• Use a funnel or a spout with an automatic stop device to prevent overfilling the gas tank.
• Close the vent on portable gas tanks when the engine is not in use or when the tank is stored.
• Transport and store gasoline out of direct sunlight in a cool, dry place.
• Use caution when pumping gasoline into a container at the gas station.
• Use an efficient tow vehicle if you have a trailer boat.
• Keep your vehicle and boat trailer tires properly inflated or they will reduce your gas mileage.
• Buy food and other products with less packaging (less waste) that come from local destinations when possible (reduce trucking emissions)
• Prepare your own meals and eat out a little less while boating.
• If you choose to bar-b-que grill a meal, it seems uncertain whether charcoal or propane is the best environmental choice per a 13 June 2007 AP article in Lower Hudson Online titled, Green Grilling - Gas vs Charcoal
• Reduce your use of battery powered products. If you have to use electronics, plug them in when you can to reduce use of batteries.
• Keep your boat battery properly charged and maintained to increase its life.
• Buy one of the new super insulated ice chests and keep it in the shade to reduce your use of ice.
• Be sure to turn up the thermostat on your home air conditioner while your family is gone boating.
• Minimize use of on board air conditioners. Use fans when you can instead.
• If your tow vehicle is a pickup, leave the tailgate down when you can to reduce drag (fuel consumption) or get one of the "tailgate nets" or one of the new tube type that can flip up)

Remember, the goal is not to make boating a painful experience. Boating is supposed to be a fun experience away from everyday life. Don't make it a drudge by being too restrictive on your Boat Carbon Footprint. There are still more ways to reduce your impact on the environment. They will be discussed below.

If you have any other boating related tips to reducing your boat carbon footprint, please email them to use and we will post them here if appropriate.

What can drivers do to reduce emissions?

• For local travel consider leaving the car at home and either walk, cycle or use public transport
• Keep the vehicle properly serviced
• Check tyre pressures at least once a fortnight
• Avoid carrying unnecessary weight in the boot
• Plan the journey, so you don't get lost and waste fuel
• Try to avoid congested areas
• When starting up, there is no need to allow the engine to warm up - it is better to just drive off
• Try to avoid sudden acceleration, engine revving, and sudden braking - harsh accelerating and braking can use up to 30% more fuel and increase wear and tear of the vehicle
• Avoid using air conditioning if possible, as this uses more fuel
• Drive with the windows closed, as this reduces drag on the vehicle
• Accelerate slower
• Switch the engine off if you think you are likely to be stationary for more than 2 minutes
• On motorways be aware of the cars 3 or 4 ahead, and keep a good distance from the car in front to avoid unnecessary braking
• When replacing your car, look for the most carbon efficient (i.e. with a low gCO2/km figure) or with a high mpg - check out our car emissions calculator to see how much you could save

Calculating the real carbon footprint of vehicles

Examining the energy requirements and greenhouse-gas emissions over the entire life cycle of a vehicle, including processes such as manufacture rather than simply operation, reveals that the new combined values increases by 63% for cars and buses, 155% for rail and 31% for air transport. So say researchers at the University of California at Berkeley, US, who believe that their work will be critical in determining the true environmental footprint of all vehicles because until now only tailpipe analyses have been considered.
Mikhail Chester and colleagues calculated the amount of energy required, and the quantity of emissions produced, over the entire lifetimes of automobiles (both buses and cars), trains and aircraft. The analysis included the energy, greenhouse-gas emissions and the production of air pollutants – such as sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and carbon monoxide %ndash; associated with vehicle manufacture, the transport infrastructure required, fuel production and the supply chain, as well as actual operation of the vehicle itself.

"Including life cycle-component inventories results in around a 40% energy and greenhouse-gas increase over direct vehicle operation for autos, while for rail there is about a doubling," Chester toldenvironmentalresearchweb. For aircraft the increase is around 30%.
Chester says that it is all too common to evaluate transport emissions based simply on the amount of fuel that vehicles consume. Often we see rankings based on these numbers, and global-warming mitigation schemes are subsequently based on such figures. But we need to analyse a vehicle's life-cycle components to evaluate properly how much energy it consumes and thus the amount of emissions that it produces, he explained.
The researchers say that the amount of occupancy can easily change the relative performance of the transport modes.
The work will be critical for policy and decision makers because the researchers have also analysed which life-cycle components have the most impact on the environment. "While policy has often focused on the vehicle's tailpipe emissions (for example, in the US Corporate Average Fuel Economy Standards, and removal of lead from petrol), our study shows that you may not want to focus on this component but somewhere else in the mode's life cycle," said Chester.

One of the best examples of such a strategic error is that of sulphur emissions, he stressed. Much has been done to remove sulphur from petrol and diesel fuels in recent years but, according to the new study, the bulk of sulphur emissions for transport actually comes from the electricity needed to manufacture a vehicle. This is particularly true for vehicles that are fabricated using electricity that is produced in coal-powered plants.

The team has already applied its inventory to several major metropolitan regions in the US. "We have also gone on to evaluate the life-cycle environmental impacts of the proposed California high-speed rail," revealed Chester.

The researchers used models that calculate the amount of electricity needed to produce the components of the three modes of transport. From this, they were able to determine the amount of polluting emissions created during different manufacturing processes. They then compared these values with the emissions produced by the same vehicles when they are on the road – the classical tailpipe scenario. The data employed were taken from previous literature, such as government reports, and more detailed modelling software like the US Environmental Protection Agency's Mobile Software for vehicle-operation emissions and the US Federal Aviation Administration's Emission Data Modelling Software for aircraft emissions.

The work is published in Environmental Research Letters. 

About the author

Belle Dumé is a contributing editor to environmentalresearchweb.

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