as the inconveniet truth thread was so popular. take the time to work out your carbonfootprint.
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as the inconveniet truth thread was so popular. take the time to work out your carbonfootprint.
TOTAL FOOTPRINT 45,033
total footprint 33,311
9,479 personal or 13,449 for the household.
5,009 Primary footprint (less than half national average - yay!)
10,959 including secondary footprint based on national averages (hope my actual total would be less than that though...)
<<< err - didn't actually fill out a review, don't know how to undo it! so I guess I'd better make it more accurate than four '1's. How's this?
is there an aussie version ?
here is a Oz friendly one http://www.climatefriendly.com.au/calc.php
Mine must be high as i fly twice every three weeks, and drive a 4wd when home...I don't know about power consumption etc as not home so cannot complete it...
Guess you'd better plant a tree or two! ;-)
An alternative view to the big concert:
Ken Ring,
Live Earth
In order to decrease carbon emissions by 33 percent, we would have to remove every existing car and truck from the road, including hybrids, ground every airplane, and shut down every gas station. In order to bump up from there to a 73-percent decrease in emissions, we would have to shut down most of our electrical grid, with the exception of areas supplied only by windmills, and dams. That's right, no computers, no lights, no cars, no air conditioning.
We've entered the third world already, and we're still not anywhere near the 90-percent reductions that some respected climate scientists say we need immediately in order to save the planet. So why is it considered anything but a big joke when former Vice President Al Gore asks millions to pledge "to demand that my country join an international treaty within the next 2 years that cuts global warming pollution by 90% in developed countries and by more than half worldwide in time for the next generation to inherit a healthy earth"? Yet instead of the appropriate laughter, we hear ecstatic plaudits from news reporters, evidently too busy copying press releases about Gore's Live Earth concerts to look anything up. Short of killing everyone, there is nothing any government can do to bring anything close to 90-percent carbon-emissions reductions within a generation.
Historically, carbon emissions decline only in years of economic hardship, and even then only slightly. Even with the economic pain suffered in those years, nations typically reduced carbon emissions by just above or below one percent, and in both cases the tiny reductions were more than made up for by increases in the following year or two. As a rule, we emit less when have less, produce less, and employ fewer people. And as our population and economy grow, so does our demand for energy.
Incremental measures such as forced ethanol use, government-efficiency standards, and carbon caps have a completely negligible effect on carbon emissions. They do have the effect, however, of causing pain for consumers.
The caps will drive up everyone's electrical bill, as well as the cost of everything that it requires energy to produce or deliver. Meanwhile, new government standards are already making electrical appliances unaffordable and worse in quality, and they will only continue to do so.
Then again, perhaps the whole idea is to cause pain. The Live Earth message seemed to be ration, cut back, turn off everything, replace everything alive and bright with duller quieter substitutes. U.S. comedian Chris Rock said "I pray that this event ends global warming the same way that Live Aid ended world hunger," The editorial in the newspaper The Australian was headed Live Earth A Dead Loss. Sir Bob Geldof said there's no need to raise awareness for what must be the world's most talked-about issue. The NZ Herald headed its page Hypocrisy Claims Shake Concert Success, all about Madonna and her financial links to oil polluters. The News of the World detailed estimates of Madonna's carbon emissions from nine houses, a fleet of cars, a private jet and the Confessions tour, calling her a "climate-change catastrophe."
The press in NZ has highlighted comments of groups that have said they just did it for the profiling. There have been suggestions that all the flying in Boeings of groups and equipment and fans here and there has actually contributed to a carbon dioxide increase, and it has not gone unnoticed that all the money goes to the Al Gore Fund which is all about selling carbon credits to governments, Some have called it an obvious presidential campaign disguised as environmental advocacy. People get behind Live Earth because they trust politicians and scientists. But politicians don't care about anything except getting re-elected and they need the votes of the greenies, and scientists need research funds to keep sending their kids to private schools and university, so all toe the government line. It's only the scientists and writers who don't need the state salaries, people like David Bellamy and Lord Monkton and Michael Crichton, who will go public with their alternative views. It seems people are getting weary now of the Al Gore message. They can see the hypocracy when he owns oil shares as well as a carbon credit agency. People are saying if they are going to be accused of wrecking the Earth they might as well just go ahead and wreck it because they're going to get spanked either way. If Gore manages to create enough doom around his product, which is doom itself, then his love-the-earth-enough-to-want-to-save-it message may result in an increased sense of apathy and actually set the environmental movement back. Which would be a good thing.
Thursday night on ABC, the other side of the argument finally gets aired, can't wait to see that....8:30pm ABC