MONTREAL, Canada, June 19, 2008 (ENS) – The United Nations International Civil Aviation Organization, ICAO, has unveiled a carbon calculation tool on its website that allows travelers to estimate the carbon footprint for any flight they take. A carbon footprint is a measure of the impact human activities have on the environment in terms of the amount of greenhouse gases produced, measured in units of carbon dioxide.

For instance, one passenger, flying economy class from New York’s John F. Kennedy International airport to Washington, DC, a distance of 212 miles, generates about 0.08 tons of carbon dioxide, the most abundant greenhouse gas responsible for climate change.

By contrast, the same passenger, flying economy class from JFK International airport to Los Angeles, a distance of 2,466 miles, generates about 0.36 tons of carbon dioxide.

Once a traveler knows how much carbon dioxide is produced for a given flight, he or she can purchase offsets, such as funding renewable energy or planting trees.

Prices for offsets vary widely depending on the projects funded from about $4 per metric ton to $99 per metric ton. Compare offset prices at websites such as EcoBusinessLinks.com, which is not affiliated with ICAO.

Planes line up for take-off from John
F. Kennedy International Airport
in the New York metropolitan
area. (Photo credit unknown)

The carbon calculator uses only publicly available and verifiable information to make its calculations about the amount of carbon dioxide emissions from a flight. It takes into account such variables as aircraft type, route data, passenger load and the amount of cargo.

Roberto Kobeh Gonzalez, president of the ICAO Council, said the calculator should benefit both individuals and organizations and will improve as a tool as more technical and operational information becomes available.

“The carbon calculator responds to the wish of many travellers for a reliable and authoritative method to estimate the carbon footprint of a flight, so they can choose the program best suited to offset the impact of their trips on climate change according to the amount of carbon dioxide they are responsible for,” Kobeh said.

It was introduced Wednesday by the Montreal-based ICAO as part of efforts to support the UN Climate Neutral Initiative, which calls for all parts of the UN system to determine their total carbon emissions.

The new carbon calculator is being backed by the UN World Tourism Organization.

The International Air Transport Association is also recommending the methodology used in the carbon calculator to its member airlines for use in their carbon-offsetting programs, in part to achieve a more consistent approach to estimating the carbon footprint of flights.

Increasing information in the area of carbon, emissions trading and offsets is one of the objectives of ICAO’s first ever “Aviation and Carbon Markets Workshop” that was held yesterday and today in Montreal.

More than 200 participants of the forum met to explore opportunities for a global aviation carbon market.

Carbon markets are designed to combat climate change by putting a price on carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. Companies can trade the right to emit these gases through permits, credits, or allowances.

ICAO’s carbon calculator is online, click here [www2.icao.int].

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SAN ANTONIO, Texas, April 22, 2008 (ENS) – For Earth Day 2008, the Nature Conservancy of Texas is offering an online carbon calculator so people can make positive daily choices to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming.

Educators can use the calculator to help young Texans understand their individual roles in supporting a healthy planet.

The Conservancy’s carbon calculator demonstrates how personal choices increase or decrease the user’s impact on global warming by measuring that person’s or family’s carbon footprint.

The footprint is the amount of greenhouse gas produced by use of transportation, electric energy consumption and dietary choices. The calculator puts these choices in context, allowing people to better understand the impacts of their actions.

Jim Bergan, Ph.D., director of science for The Nature Conservancy of Texas, said, “In Texas, scientists are documenting the threats from global warming and climate change. While some patterns are within the range of historic variability, in recent years our state has faced severe drought, more intense storms and hurricanes, and the effects of rising sea level along the Gulf Coast.”

Traffic crawls along I-35 in Texas, emitting greenhouse gases. (Photo courtesy Texas Department of Transportation)

“This is a useful online tool to inform the public of the effects of global climate change,” he said. “It explains how some of our actions contribute to rising temperatures and helps us make simple, everyday choices that, when multiplied by millions of Texans, can significantly benefit all of us.”

The Carbon Footprint Calculator also provides tips for reducing emissions and allows people to compare their overall impact to national and worldwide averages.

The tool estimates emissions of all greenhouse gases, not just carbon dioxide. Because some of the gases that drive climate change can linger in the atmosphere for a century or more, today’s actions can make a big difference to future generations.

The calculator uses a visually accessible format, including graphs and charts, and can be completed in a few minutes. It provides immediate visual feedback to users about the impact of their behaviors.

The calculations have been reviewed and verified by Conservancy climate change scientists and are based on data from sources including the World Resources Institute and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

“Once people use the carbon calculator and get a sense of what their impact is, there are many steps they can take to reduce their contributions to climate change,” Bergan said. “With the great distances we travel within the borders of Texas, we can choose to teleconference instead of driving or flying to business meetings, reducing carbon emissions while saving on the high cost of fuel.”

“Developing this mindset is not a partisan issue, it’s about optimizing household economies and bettering our environment,” he said.

“We can install programmable thermostats in our homes and offices for more efficient cooling in the hot summer months, and plant native Texas trees to provide shade,” Bergan added. “We can also take better advantage of our delicious and abundant Texas-grown produce, meats, fish, shrimp and other foods, which would result in fewer emissions when compared to food transported from out of state.”

In addition to public awareness efforts such as the Carbon Footprint Calculator, the Conservancy works to reduce sources of global warming by promoting policies to reduce emissions from fossil fuels and by stemming deforestation.

Conservancy scientists in Texas are working in the Hill Country, on the Gulf Coast, in the Trans Pecos of West Texas, in the Big Thicket, in the Rio Grande Valley and other parts of the state to build networks of conservation areas that help plants and animals move into new locations as the old ones become uninhabitable.

The organization says these projects improve the ability of ecosystems to cope with warmer temperatures, altered precipitation, rising sea levels and other changes.

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It’s easy to think, “Local food is always the best answer,” and leave it at that; most of the time, it might be right, but new information is emerging that disputes local’s lofty position at the throne of TreeHugging food. The notion of “food miles,” the distance your food has traveled to get to your plate, is absolutely an important consideration, but, as it turns out, we might not be able to let the buck stop there.

In a piece for the New York Times [www.nytimes.com], James E. McWilliams, the author of “A Revolution in Eating: How the Quest for Food Shaped America,” argues that it isn’t as simple as sourcing your food from local farmers, at farmer’s markets and through community-supported agriculture, and calling it a day. While there are undeniable benefits of eating local — unbeatable freshness, which leads to better taste, a more meaningful connection with your food and where it comes from and a more mindful approach to eating, just to name a few — McWilliams believes that, though it’s quite intuitive, fewer food miles (and, you’d think, fewer greenhouse gas emissions) doesn’t necessary mean it’s better for the environment. What?

“It all depends on how you wield the carbon calculator,” says McWilliams. “Instead of measuring a product’s carbon footprint through food miles alone, the Lincoln University scientists expanded their equations to include other energy-consuming aspects of production — what economists call ‘factor inputs and externalities’ — like water use, harvesting techniques, fertilizer outlays, renewable energy applications, means of transportation (and the kind of fuel used), the amount of carbon dioxide absorbed during photosynthesis, disposal of packaging, storage procedures and dozens of other cultivation inputs.” Given these ideas — a more life cycle analysis-type approach — the relative carbon footprint of foods, both local and otherwise, can change very quickly. To wit: lamb raised in New Zealand’s lush clover pastures and shipped to Britain “produced 1,520 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions per ton while British lamb produced 6,280 pounds of carbon dioxide per ton, in part because poorer British pastures force farmers to use feed. In other words, it is four times more energy-efficient for Londoners to buy lamb imported from the other side of the world than to buy it from a producer in their backyard. Similar figures were found for dairy products and fruit.”

Hmm. So what does that mean for the burgeoning “eat local” movement? It sounds bad, but, says McWilliams, it absolutely doesn’t have to be: “‘Eat local’ advocates — a passionate cohort of which I am one — are bound to interpret these findings as a threat. We shouldn’t. Not only do life cycle analyses offer genuine opportunities for environmentally efficient food production, but they also address several problems inherent in the eat-local philosophy.
“Consider the most conspicuous ones: it is impossible for most of the world to feed itself a diverse and healthy diet through exclusively local food production — food will always have to travel; asking people to move to more fertile regions is sensible but alienating and unrealistic; consumers living in developed nations will, for better or worse, always demand choices beyond what the season has to offer.”
For the most part, we think McWilliams gets it right; essentially, what he’s saying can be boiled down to a great quote, also from the Times: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” [www.nytimes.com] There is no room for blind consumption in the green world, and, like many other environmental issues, there is no silver bullet for eating green all the time, and no one method — all organic, all local, etc. — will a perfectly green meal make. Get all the details about this new take on local here in the New York Times [www.nytimes.com].