What on Earth is Your Carbon Footprint and Why Should You Care?

These days if someone asks you if you know how big your footprint is, they may not necessarily be asking about your shoe size. Chances are they might be asking about the size of your carbon footprint instead.

Determining your carbon footprint and then looking for ways to reduce it is gaining popularity among people wanting to decrease their negative impact on the environment.

There are many people though who are still asking, "Just what is my carbon footprint and why on earth should I care how big it is?"

In case you are one of them, or even if you are just looking for some great ideas on reducing yours, I wanted to use this post as an opportunity to explain key terms and provide some great resources.

In short, your carbon footprint is basically the sum total of all your actions and decisions and the impact they have on the environment through carbon emissions. How you live, eat, shop and travel all impact the size of your footprint.

In order to know just how big your individual footprint is you need a carbon calculater. There are great ones all over the web. One, in particular, that is easy to use can be found here.

So now you know the size of your footprint. What do you do about it?

MXenergy has just added tremendous new content to their site providing simple ways you can reduce your carbon footprint at home, on the road and when shopping. (Hint: one great way to reduce your shopping footprint is by buying fresh, organic, local meat and produce.  I happen to know of a certain Farmer's Market opening next week in Westport that could certainly help you get a smaller shoe size.)

In addition to how you shop, simple things like the proper inflation of your tires, whether or not you have a roof rack or what kind of blinds you choose for your home can all make a difference. Tips like this and many more can be found on the expanded MXenergy site.

It may seem as if these changes are too small and insignificant to really have an impact.  However, that is the beauty of this change. Here are just a few facts to consider:

• Change five bulbs. The EPA estimates if every American would just switch out five traditional light bulbs for CFL's we would save over one trillion pounds of CO2.
• Turn your air conditioner up or your heat down by two degrees and save 2,000 pounds of CO2 each year.
• Stop the leaks - fixing a leaky toilet can save 200 gallons of water a month. And sealing up leaks around the house with proper insulation will dramatically reduce home energy bills
• Get rid of paper towels. The NDRC estimates that if every household eliminated one roll of paper towels, we would save 554,000 trees.

Now that you understand what your carbon footprint is and how to determine yours, hopefully, we can all work on squeezing our feet in to smaller shoes. I know I am certainly going to try.