Carbon Footprint

The carbon footprint is the estimation of carbon dioxide (CO₂) released into the atmosphere by human activities, notably the burning of fossil fuels (see Greenhouse gases). Typically, this is calculated by evaluating the amount of time a person spends traveling in various vehicles; how much electricity, natural gas, fuel oil, etc. they use in their home; what they do, eat, wear, and buy; whether or not they practice environmentalism (e.g. recycling); and what country they live in. This calculation is then used to determine what someone has to do to "offset" their carbon footprint's impact on climate change. This almost always involves paying exorbitant amounts of money to companies that supposedly plant trees or build alternate energy producing facilities.

Human Intervention

Liberal politicians have trumpeted the imposition of carbon caps and carbon-trading, in order to control the carbon footprints of companies and people. Although market-based carbon cap-and-trade schemes are being implemented to certain extents and with some measured success in New Zealand and in the European Union, and a similar, successful program for sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides was implemented in the U.S. under President George H.W. Bush as an amendment to the Clean Air Act, a "carbon currency" in the U.S. still has many logistical hurdles and has the potential for abuse.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change produced a report for the International Energy Agency (IEA) which states that the price for reducing human CO₂ 50% by the year 2050 will cost an estimated $45 trillion or 1.1 per cent of average annual global GDP.

Detractors argue that CO₂ is just a tiny component of the overall mechanisms that causes the climate to change. Human driven CO₂ is even less a component.