My Limited Carbon Understanding

Over the last decade, especially in the last 4 years I’ve been hearing a lot about the size of our combined carbon footprint and the impact in the world. When I lived in Alberta as a travelling salesman I would travel for hundreds of KM’s every day in my 2012 V8 Truck which didn’t have the best MPG or L/100km, so I would frequently make jokes, not about my carbon footprint, but about my carbon ass print. The reality was a lot more sad than crappy jokes. The reality was I didn’t fully understand what it meant to have a carbon footprint, I understood the concept, but not the details or how to evaluate it. When you start throwing in phrases like a Ton of carbon dioxide and offsetting, then it can become difficult to grasp.

As with anything in life, in order to properly deal with a situation, you must first fully understand it. So this short article is not the answer to every question, in fact it raises more questions than it answers. It’s more about the musing and considerations I’m now taking to get to a level where I can say... “I understand a little more clearly”. I think the reality is: we are years away from fully grasping (as individuals) our true impact without some dramatic changes happening.

The first thing I learnt is that there are two types of carbon emissions: Direct and indirect.

Direct is the impact of me/my family burning/using fuel. Driving my car and heating my house along with consuming energy. This, I have direct control over.

Indirect is a little more complex. Indirect is the combined carbon emissions produced during the life cycle of products that I use daily, and this can add up!

First let’s tackle Direct, and my vehicle. My truck would use 12L of fuel per 100km driven on the highway. 12L of Hydrocarbon fuel weighs approximately 8.5kg. If my fuel is about 61% carbon then there is 5.1kg of carbon. However, when carbon burns it binds to two oxygen particles. So 5.1kg of carbon will bind to 10.2kg of Oxygen (ish, we’ll get to accurate weights later) Resulting is 15.3kg of Carbon Dioxide/100km. Or 153g/km. Seems high!! The same logic can be applied to the gas to heat my house or the electricity to power my computer. If it’s a carbon based fuel then the outcome is the same.

Next, indirect. In my mind there is far too much to consider. So let’s take a single item... a milk container. Plastic or cardboard, it doesn’t matter. First, the upstream carbon emissions (upstream = before I get the product).

Where did it get made?

How much energy was used during the manufacturing of this item?

How did it get made?

It’s got card, plastic, print, glue, folding bits. Where did the materials come from?

I assume the farm didn’t make it. How did it get to the facility where it was filled? Truck? Train? Boat? All of the above?

How did they sterilize it? Heat? Chemicals?

They filled it with milk! How much feed did the cow consume to produce that milk? How was the feed produced?

How is the machine powered that milks the cow?

Then they pasteurize the milk, what heat source did they use to heat the milk?

It's also Homogenized. They broke down the fat particles through high pressure spraying, that sounds like an energy intense process.

Then the milk is packaged, refrigerated and transported to the shop. How far did the milk have to travel to reach the shop producing 153g/km of Co2? How much energy does it take to refrigerate?

I drive to the shop, buy the milk then refrigerate it for a week.... but now I’m back to Direct Carbon emissions.

Onwards with the indirect, but now downstream (after I’m finished with the product). I finish the milk and rinse out the container at the tap. How much energy has gone into producing clean tap water for my house? Added chlorine in the water, how much energy did it take to extract the chlorine?

Here I’ve got 2 choices. Throw it away or recycle it? Obviously I’m going to recycle it, I don’t want that blunder on my conscience! I put it on the curb and it gets collected by a less than carbon friendly recycling truck, but it’s painted blue and green so it makes me feel good!! On its way to the recycling plant it’s collecting 10’s of thousands of other containers with similar upstream stories.

At the recycling plant it is cleaned, crushed/mashed, filtered and separated before being dried and packed. I don’t know how the product is re-purposed after this, but it’s safe to say that it’s quite an energy intense process. How much Co2 is produced to process this material? And, is recycling even worth it, given how much energy is consumed?

With processes such as this in place for a singular item it not a surprise that Canada is producing 15 tons of carbon dioxide per person, per year.

Which brings me nicely on to the topic of 'a ton of Carbon Dioxide'. How much is a ton? How can carbon dioxide possibly weigh a ton? Earlier I mentioned the 153g/km from my truck. Carbon has the atomic weight of 12, Oxygen has an atomic weight of 16 so Co2 has a molecular weight of 44.

12 + (2 x 16) = 44

Making CO2 over 3 times heavier than oxygen. With this extra weight, a ton of CO2 can be visualized as a cube measuring 27’ x 27’ x 27’. About the size of a medium three bedroom house.

Living in Canada, we produce approximately 15.2 tons of carbon dioxide per person each year! That's over 15x the volume of a house, every year. According to various sources this needs to reduce immediately to under 2 tons.

The big question is: how am I going to get there?

I don’t believe that the world, my country or my city have the slightest inclination to spend the type of money that would be needed to change every process everywhere to make this happen.

What is in my control?

1. How much I drive.
2. The vehicle I drive.
3. The energy I consume.
4. Reusable instead of recyclable.
5. Local instead of national or international

Are these 5 things sufficient?

Then I look at where we were when I was a kid in the 90’s. Milk was delivered by Roger the milk man, on an electric vehicle in reusable bottles from a local farm. Why did that change? (As a school kid I worked for Roger delivering milk). This was more environmentally friendly, and better for the local economy!

Instead of shopping locally, I’ve turned to Amazon... and all the extra packaging that’s built into that story, not to mention the imported products from overseas, and the immense power used at their distribution centers.

And finally, Carbon offsetting. The principle is: give money to an organization who will spend that money (after they’ve paid themselves) planting trees, building renewable energy plants or reducing emissions from a landfill somewhere. There are calculations for the number of trees that can be planted to absorb CO2, but as far as I can tell they are all over the place. Also... planting single species of trees creates mono cultures... another topic for another day.

The only way (from a consumers perspective) to understand this problem is transparency.

I propose a new level of accountability.

1. Make it easier for individuals to calculate their carbon footprint
2. Make it compulsory for organizations to calculate and publish their carbon emissions by product.

How about this? Print it on a label on all packaging like we’ve done with Calories, Saturated fats, Salt, Cigarettes, Nuts.... and even ‘Hot Beverages’. Wouldn't it be enlightening to know how far your milk container, Tim Hortons cup has travelled, and how much Co2 was produced by that single item both in manufacturing and transit. Would that help us understand?

Wouldn’t it be ironic if the very packaging that was part of the problem became the delivery method for the solution!

Design an app that tracks activity to measure CO2 emissions for the home and for travel.

We’re facing a global problem and we need a system to get everyone on the same page through education.

Let’s make it easy for everyone to know both their direct and indirect carbon footprint.

...And support local!!!