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By measuring your greenhouse gas emissions and by reducing them accordingly you can be the change you want to see as of today
The planet has entered a state of emergency with unprecedented risk of damage to humanity and the environment. Global warming and the collapse of biodiversity are having fatal consequences on an exponential scale. Urgent action is needed at all levels – everywhere and now – to confront the threat.
Even a planned facility 10 times larger would have almost no impact on the 33 billion tons of carbon to be emitted this year.
Source : Inside Climate News
September 9, 2021
A new report finds that up to 85 percent of threatened animal and plant species have had their habitat damaged by mining, agriculture or logging.
Source : Inside Climate News
September 6, 2021
The concentration of greenhouse gases in Earth’s atmosphere hit their highest level ever recorded in 2020, while the year was overall the warmest on record, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) annual review.
Source : The Hill
August 27, 2021
Hybrit sends steel made with hydrogen production process to Volvo, which plans to use it in prototype vehicles and components
Source : The Guardian
August 23, 2021
As the world warms, these Earth systems are changing : SEA, ICE, LAND.
Could further warming make them spiral out of contraol ?
Source : Grist
August 6, 2021
Cutting emissions more urgent than ever, say scientists, with forest producing more than a billion tonnes of carbon dioxide a year
Source : The Guardian
July 15, 2021
The Sámi people of Northern Sweden say blocking out the sun with reflective particles to cool the earth is the kind of thinking that produced the climate crisis in the first place.
Source : Inside Climate News
July 7, 2021
Communities have been adding new foods to their diets and changing their consumption habits for centuries. Yet current diets rely heavily on three staple crops, and this can have implications for health and the environment. As a result, there is a need to make better use of the wide variety of crops available to us, some of which have been cultivated and consumed by communities for centuries, and explore how they can be incorporated into modern diets worldwide in an equitable and sustainable way.
Source : The Economist Intelligence Unit
July 2, 2021
Nearly half a billion Indigenous people live off, and help preserve, the land. But a UN report concludes they are besieged as protectors of biodiversity.
Source : Inside Climate News
June 26, 2021
Roads in which waste plastic is melted down and mixed with paving materials are becoming more common around the world. Although for now they remain a niche technology, experts say the roads could become one of a diverse array of uses for discarded plastic.
Source : TED – Explore ideas worth spreading
June 21, 2021
A new study finds that if all parts of the food system are included, food production is responsible for as much as 40 percent of global emissions.
Source : Inside Climate News
June 11, 2021
The vast majority of LCA studies of food service ware show that reusables are better for the environment than single-use products and packaging.
Source : Upstream
June 7, 2021
To keep global warming below 1.5°, we must at all costs avoid depleting our carbon budget. All organisations must therefore reduce their emissions as much as possible – and as soon as possible – in order to comply with the IPCC special report’s warning to limit global warming to 1.5°C. At current emissions levels, this budget will be exhausted within a few years and well before 2030. Every moment is counting and the countdown is not stopping. So the time to act is today.
The MCC Carbon Clock shows how much CO2 can be released into the atmosphere to limit global warming to a maximum of 1.5°C and 2°C, respectively. Once the remaining time has elapsed these thresholds will be exceeded. With just a few clicks, you can compare the estimates for both temperature targets and see how much time is left in each scenario.
The world total carbon footprint in 2019 due to human emissions was around 37 gigatons of CO2 eq. These huge emissions are the accumulation of many and many … billions of big and small emissions that are the result of life styles and consumption.
To reach net zero emissions by 2050, the individual carbon footprint should not exceed 700 kg/ year of CO2 eq.
For the time being, the average individual footprint in Switzerland is 14 t CO2 eq. It means, we should divide our carbon footprint by 20. Let’s start and take up the challenge today.
Here is the carbon footprint of some everyday life aspects, be it the production of goods or the consumption of services (average values):
160 g can be compared to the weight a banana. It means that for each km by car we send a CO2 banana in the atmosphere …
Just imagine how it would be if these bananas were left on the roads
| Sources | Co2 Equivalent kg |
|---|---|
| One car | 4000 - 7000 |
| One personal computer | 165 |
| One smartphone | 33 |
| One e-mail | 0.020 |
| One kg of office paper | 1.2 |
| One Plastic bottle (33 cl.) | 0.070 |
| Vegetarian meal | 1.7 |
| Non-vegetarian meal | 3.6 |
| Coffee (1cup) | 0.113 |
| Green Electricity (kWh) | 0.007 |
| 1 km by petrol car | 0.160 |
| 1 km by train (in Switzerland) | 0.007 |
The carbon footprint is only one part of the impact of human beings on planet Earth. To get a glimpse of our global impact, take a look at the graphic below.
We should also keep in mind how quickly our impact has grown. The Earth, our only available habitat, appeared some 4.5 billion years ago. The ancestors of human beings first appeared less than 10 million years ago.
In other words, if you were to compress the entire history of the Earth into 24 hours, the first Homo sapiens would only arrive in the last few seconds and the advent of agriculture would only be a blink of an eye before midnight.
To have a closer look, follow Living in the Age of Humans, a series of stories that examine the impacts of human presence on Earth.
Major environmental-change categories expressed as a percentage relative to intact baseline. Red indicates percentage of category damaged, lost or otherwise affected; blue indicates percentage intact, remaining or unaffected. Frontiers in Conservation Science
