Australians Have the Biggest Carbon Footprints

Did you know..?

Australians, (then Americans) on average have the largest carbon footprint in the world. Basically, this is because of our huge dependence on fossil fuel and most Australians have ginormous homes compared with the rest of the world.

Read this at Zero Your Carbon.

One of the problems is though that we’re subjected to the most ridiculously high electricity prices and are then offered the option of paying more for carbon offsets. Hmmm, now I think that the electricity companies are taking the proverbial a bit there. Especially considering when we run out of fossil fuel all their electric will have to come from renewable energy sources anyway. So, in effect, they’re asking us to pay for their investment in something that they are going to need otherwise they’ll go out of business. Sounds like a rip off that the government should do something about.

Carbon Offsets

One way of overcoming the fact that you will have a carbon footprint, no matter what you do, is to purchase carbon offsets. In its simplest form, carbon offsetting is the planting of trees to absorb the carbon dioxide that you inevitably produce in your everyday life. Of course, not everybody has a garden in which to plant innumerable trees so there are now companies that specialise in doing this for you. It takes around 6 trees to absorb one tonne of carbon dioxide and it’s possible to buy these trees from certain companies for as little as $3 per tree. Seems like a bargain to me.