What I Hope to Achieve, Part 2: A Reduced Carbon Footprint

Earlier I discussed "The Fitness Factor" in Part 1 of What I Hope to Achieve.  Another goal of mine during this month of carlessness is to reduce my carbon footprint.  To be honest with you, I don't know much about how a carbon footprint is calculated, so I headed on over to carbonfootprint.com.

I only used the mileage for going to and from work for purposes of calculating my carbon footprint from commuting.  From Silver Spring to Rockville, that's 13 miles each way or 26 miles/day, or 520 miles/month.  I calculated how many miles I rode the bus last week plus how many miles I intend to ride it this week, then multiplied that figure by two to give me a monthly estimate to compare to the 520 miles traveled in my single-occupancy vehicle.  That figure was 348 miles on the bus, and 172 miles on foot or bike (which I assume emits 0 tons of carbon).

According to the website calculator, my commute to work in my single occopancy vehicle emits .20 metric tons of CO2 in a one-month period.  Compare that to the .08 tons of CO2 emitted by my method of commuting combining bus, biking, and running over a one-month period:

I finished out the carbon calculator, assuming the other variables stayed the same whether I was driving or busing/biking/running so that I could compare myself to the national average.  When driving to work for the month, my carbon footprint totaled .78 metric tons, or 9.71 tons a year.  The national average is 20.4, so it looks like I'm doing prettty well to start with, even with driving.  (However, it asked if I did any flying this month, which I have not, but I did do quite a bit of flying from Seoul to Thailand and back last spring, so I admit, this isn't an entirely accurate picture of my YEARLY carbon footprint.)

Finally, I calculated my carbon footprint with my method of getting to work of busing/biking/running.  Keep in mind I have not included use of heavy rail transit in this calculation, as I've been using the metro as little as possible (read: almost never) during this endeavor.

My carbon footprint for the month was .66 metric tons, or .12 tons less than when I drive to work.  That difference adds up to 1.44 less tons of carbon emitted per year. Even if you factor in other travel by bus (or by car for that matter), I'm still below the national average, so I feel good about that.  The final factor in deciding to embark on this carless adventure was the cost factor, and I'll have more on that in a later post...