Glastonbury’s Carbon Reduction Action Group (CRAG) news

So I’ve finally managed to calculate my carbon emissions for 2006/7. I used a little book called “Carbon Counter – calculate your carbon footprint” published by Collins Gem, plus a special website for food calculations (foodcarbon.co.uk) to work out my food emissions. I double-checked them all for ‘sanity’ on carbonfootprint.com, it’s a very straightforward little website.

The BIG discrepancy was flying where the Collins book wanted to multiply the basic CO2 figure by 2.7 to include the extra damage flying causes, they cited to Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as proof. I dare say they are right but it means the flights I took overshadow everything else by a long way.

So my figures are -

Coal 0
Oil 0
Gas Heating 15000 kWh x 0.19 x 4 in my house = 712kg/yr, less an allowance for me being away = est

500 kg/yr

.
Electricity (non-green) 3670 kWh x 0.43 x 4 in my house = 395kg/yr; less an allowance for me being away = est

300 kg/yr

.
Car 2000 miles x 155 gms/kg = 496 kg/yr, say

500 kg/yr

.
Public Transport
Coach 9090 miles (yes its true!) x 128 gms/kg = 1163 kg/yr
Train 5000 miles x 176 gms/km = 880 kg/yr
Underground 500 miles (est) x 112gms/km = 56 kg/yr
TOTAL public transport:

2099 kg/yr

(interesting that my book figures coach travel to be pretty much as bad as car travel ie 128 gms/km as opposed to 155, and train travel to be worse at 176!)
Plane

9840 kg/yr according to “Carbon Counter”; but only (!) 2600 according to carbonfootprint.com

Food

1500 kg/yr according to foodcarbon.co.uk.

Secondary Emissions

5950 kg/yr (according to http://www.carbonfootprint.com)

Total = 20689 kg/yr of CO2…!

NOTES

I wanted to get as complete ie pessimistic picture as possible so was keen to include food and also the Secondary Emissions and the multiplier for flying.

Everything includes my work as well as my personal life. My work involves a good deal of travel, specifically visiting Buddhist Centres around the UK and Europe. However I figured that if I didn’t include it as ‘mine’, who would…?

My flights were two long-distance return flights, the first to India for business and later to Bermuda to be with my mother after my father died. Incredibly polluting but it’d have been a tough choice not to go.

Secondary Emissions seem to be the more-or-less non-negotiable share of society’s emissions that we have to take a share of simply by being a citizen of the UK. According to carbonfootprint.com they consist of things like Car Manufacture, Buildings, Furniture and Appliances, Recreation and Service, Finance and other service, Share of Public Services.

Looking to next year, if I manage not to fly then my footprint will shrivel dramatically. I’ve sold my car already and hope to convert my landlady to green electricity. I won’t be doing half as much by train (the figures above included 4000 km across India and all over Europe) and hopefully a good deal less by coach… though looking at the above conversion figures, it seems I might as well buy a car – it’s less polluting than going by train! Must check that as it doesn’t sound like the answer I was expecting…

Lokabandhu
November 19th 2007