Your Carbon Footprint

Have you ever stopped to think what your carbon footprint is? Every facet of our daily lives has an impact on our planet. While driving our cars, heating or cooling our homes, or catching a flight, we produce greenhouse gas emissions.
    
Your carbon footprint is the sum of all CO2 (carbon dioxide gas) emissions produced by your activities for a specific occasion or over a period of time. To determine a carbon footprint you need to consider every aspect of an activity, including the energy it takes to produce and transport the goods and services you consume and the energy consumed in basic infrastructure services.
    
Summer is an ideal time to build habits that reduce your carbon footprint. Longer days and milder weather provide an opportunity to consume less energy and produce less carbon dioxide. Why not commit to shrinking your carbon footprint this summer?
    
Consider riding a bike on an errand, planting a backyard garden, purchasing fresh fruits and vegetables at a local farmers market, turning up the thermostat on your air conditioner, or even turning the lights off early in the evening and enjoying the summer stars. Your carbon impact is affected not only by what you consume, but also what you discard—so planning your purchases to avoid waste saves you money and improves our planet.
    
To calculate your carbon impact, you can visit nature.org and complete a short questionnaire that calculates how much carbon gas you create in your household. This quick process helps you realize some simple steps (like adding composting to your routine and maximizing recycling) that can reduce your carbon footprint.
    
There are many simple steps you can fit into your daily routine which take very little effort and make a positive impact on reducing your carbon footprint. Paying attention to everyday actions and choosing to be more conscious of environmental solutions put you in control of the energy needed to support your lifestyle, and in turn, your carbon footprint.
    
A few simple changes go a long way toward making sure our planet is a better place for our future generations.