Carbon footprint.
What exactly is that? A term unheard of in the general public vernacular not too long ago is now a hotly debated topic around the world.
According to Wikipedia a carbon footprint is a "measure of the impact human activities have on the environment in terms of the amount of green house gases produced, measured in units of carbon dioxide".
Why is the carbon footprint important? This leads to another hotly debated topic, global warming.
I'll address global warming in a later article but the two are closely linked.
You see the larger the carbon footprint the more the impact on the environment.
This impact is causing the Earth to heat up.
The evidence for this is growing so large that it is hard to argue that it is happening.
Of course there are still people who do argue that there isn't any global warming and hence the carbon footprint is meaningless.
However the majority of governments around the world now recognize the relationship of the carbon footprint and global warming and the danger to the planet.
141 countries have joined together to fight to control their carbon footprint.
They have signed a treaty called the Kyoto Protocol.
This was done in Kyoto, Japan in November 2004.
The idea being that this will reduce greenhouse gas emissions and ultimately control the heating up of the planet.
These 141 countries account for 55% of greenhouse gases.
They have pledged to reduce emissions by 5.
2% by 2012.
There are some notable exceptions to who hasn't signed onto this treaty.
Embarrassingly the US (the worst polluter) has decided to not join the treaty.
The US says that the changes would be too costly to put into effect.
Considering what is expected to happen if global warming continues makes this viewpoint exceedingly shortsighted and rather naive.
Other notable exceptions are India, China and Brazil who are not required to meet specific targets.
President Bush used this fact to bow out of joining the treaty.
Of course the United States should be leading the world in reducing its' carbon footprint and being a good example.
Perhaps the next administration will be a bit more enlightened.
Carbon footprints just don't apply to governments but also to individuals.
There are many things that you can do to reduce your footprint.
One is to use different energy sources.
One that has been used for decades but not to it's fullest extent is nuclear energy.
Enough of us doing what we can will have a measurable impact.
The consequences of not taking action are too grave to sit on the sidelines.
In the next article I will go over what individuals can do to reduce their carbon footprint.