Who’s the biggest emitter of them all?

First off, happy birthday baby! Mwa mwa mwa mwa mwa mwa mwa! I spent a precious three minutes developing a work of art to mark your entry into the rank of the 26-year-olds:




Next up, an educational piece (I’m in the mood for personal knowledge enhancement, so bear with me). With all the hoo-ha about carbon emissions, the new buzzword is carbon footprints. So let me enlighten you all…

What is a carbon footprint?

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.

Carbon footprint = direct (primary) + indirect (secondary) footprint

The primary footprint constitutes our direct emission of carbon dioxide from the consumption of fossil fuels (for use in the home and transportation).

The secondary footprint measures carbon dioxide emissions from the whole lifecycle of products we use (during their manufacture and break down).

How do I reduce my footprint?

Primary footprint: aeroplanes = bad! Ground-based public transport = good! (and you all mocked the Gautrain, sis on you!). Bumming regular lifts with tjommies traveling the same route as you = good! Time to turn off the gas, sever your electricity connections and buy solar panels.

Secondary footprint: Bottled water = kak. You get quality water from your tap, so why encourage the unnecessary burning of fuel to make the plastic container and transport the stuff from Franschhoek to your mouth? Any food from another country = kak. For transport reasons (i.e. consumption of fuels) we should stick to food made/grown locally (perhaps the government should have used this excuse when putting quotas on imported Chinese textiles?) So local really is lekker!

This website lists a number of ways to reduce your emissions, most amusing of which is “See if your employer will allow you to work from home one day a week.” “C’mon boss! Do it for our planet!” Not in this lifetime, I’m afraid…

Third World Ant’s footprint is ginormous for such a little insect

Calculate your own carbon footprint



Seems like I’m naai’ing the world with my profligate use of a private car and holiday flights (the values for the secondary footprint have all been assumed by the calculator). Scarily, environmentalists claim that to stop global warming, the average individual carbon dioxide emission needs to be reduced to 2,500 kg/year. That’s a sixth of my current consumption! I’m going to have to ask to work from home from Monday to Friday at this rate! (I must say though, that scientifically, environmentalists are a dodgy lot – they fail to back up most of their claims with credible scientific experimentation. I certainly do not doubt the gist of their claims, just the empirical accuracy thereof).

So how now, thou polluting cows? I’m not sure myself – there’s so much talk about the need for global adoption of environmentally friendly processes, but no-one taking serious measures to cut their own emissions. The problem lies in the fact that being pro-environment is perceived to be expensive – operating cheap and dirty is seen to line the pockets of shareholders with much thicker wads of profit. Till that perception/fact is changed, I can’t see anything improving noticeably any time soon.