ISSUE: HOW BIG IS YOUR CARBON FOOTPRINT?
Climate change is on everybody’s mind these days. Greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide (CO2), are thought to be a significant cause. Fortunately, responsible individuals and companies are working to reduce emissions and their carbon footprint. How about you?
Carbon is contained in CO2, a greenhouse gas.
Your carbon footprint, put simply, is the amount of CO2 your activities generate. You may wonder how your use of paper and wood products affects your overall carbon footprint. You can help reduce CO2 in our atmosphere by making informed product choices, knowing how the earth’s carbon cycle works, and understanding how forest products fit into the natural cycle.
The Carbon Cycle
There is a fixed amount of carbon on earth. But it is constantly moving in a variety of forms in a series of exchanges. For example, when a tree conducts photosynthesis, it absorbs CO2 from the air. When a tree dies and decays, carbon is transferred from the forest to the soil and eventually to the air as CO2. When a factory uses energy to make goods, it emits carbon into the atmosphere. There are many such exchanges between the earth and the atmosphere, between the atmosphere and the ocean, and so on.
How do humans affect the carbon cycle? Our activities redistribute carbon and, in the case of greenhouse gases, can affect nature’s balance. Fortunately, we can reduce our impact on the natural carbon cycle by making smart choices.
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