What is Carbon Footprint?

I came accross this article about carbon footprint in Haring Ibon, issue 32 by Dominic Gonzales of Manila Waldorf School. I have been seeing about this over the web but never really understand it, let's educate ourselves...

A carbon footprint is a measure of the impact our activities have on the environment, and in particular climate change. It relates to the amount of greenhouse gases produced in our day-to-day lives through burning fossil fuels for electricity, heating and transportation etc. The carbon footprint is a measurement of all greenhouse gases we individually produce and has units of tonnes (or kg) of carbon dioxide equivalent.

A carbon footprint is made up of the sum of two parts, the primary footprint and the secondary footprint.

Primary Footprint

The primary footprint is a measure of our direct emissions of CO2 from the burning of fossil fuels including domestic energy consumption and transportation. We have direct control of these.

Breakdown (46%):

1. Home: a. Gas, oil and coal (15%), b. Electricity (12%)

2. Transport: a. Private (10%), b. Public (3%), c. Holiday flights (6%)

Secondary Footprint

The secondary footprint is a measure of the indirect CO2 emissions from the whole lifecycle of products we use - those associated with their manufacture and eventual breakdown. To put it very simply – the more we buy the more emissions will be caused on our behalf.

Breakdown (54%):

1. Food and drinks (5%)

2. Clothes and personal effects (4%)

3. Car manufacture and delivery (7%)

4. House - buildings and furnishings (9%)

5. Recreation and Liesure (14%)

6. Financial services (3%)

7. Share of public services (12%)

Well we do now clearly see how vastly we affect the climate change with our little doings. So reduce you carbon footprint and do your part!

Reduce it now! Click here: CARBON FOOTPRINT CALCULATOR

Source and further readings:

http://www.carbonfootprint.com/

Wikipedia carbon footprint article

Photo attatchment courtesy of Wikipedia.

Quotable Quotes...

I wanna share with ya'll what I did while in the toilet, doin' 'you know what', hehe. These are just quotes about what's goin' on my mind just recently. I sent them to my 'globe text list' and managed to save just three, about friendship, personal and love...

"Friends save you from suicide, may it be physical, fashion, financial, love, emotional, social, etc. So whoelse would you call as your personal hero? A friend whose there when hope is almost over."

"I am so distracted with the world around me which I thought was mine that I forgot to realize that I haven't built my own steady foundation to even stand in this so called 'real world'. Now I'm shakin' with fear, struggling, dissapointed. Clouded vision should be cleared, I must get over this mess and re-group my derailed path, soon..."

"I'm not sure if I should give you my heart for I would be a fool again if you'd break it, but if I would not make a risk I might regret for the rest of my life what might have been. I could not decide, and I can't hide the fact that I'm probably lovin' you right now."

Hope one of these were routed to you...

My Coin Collection

Ei guys!!! I want to share with y'all my coin collection. I have been collecting coins since highschool but now I kinda stopped. Why did I came up to collecting these? Simple, we got lots of coins at home and it is just right for me to safekeep them. I got US coins, Japanese, Australian, some are European, Middle Eastern, and South/ East/ Southeast Asia. These were mostly given to me by my relatives who travel a lot. Oh, I almost forgot, of course I do have Philippine coin collection that dates back to Americsn Period, isn't that interesting, eh? Check it out, sooner or later you might be collecting too. I also have old paper money from our country, Saudi, HK and Singapore but failed to take pictures of them. Maybe next time, but in the mean time click or copy/ paste the URL link below! Thanks!

Click here: http://www.flickr.com/gp/9454685@N03/907W73

CYBERACTIVISM!

A comment from my last post prompted me to blog a post about online activism/ cyberactivism. Although I have added information about online activism on my page, courtesy of Greenpeace.org, I must've forgotten to introduce CYBERACTIVISM by Greenpeace International!

Translation: Cyberactivism network. Just click and make a change.

You can help spread the awful news about the drastic changes that affects us and ultimately the mother Earth and the ways to alleviate the problem by blogging, like this, or by signing-up to the forum Louder than Words (click the picture on the upper-right corner of this page or fill-up the form at the bottom part of this page). You can also register in Greenpeace.org to participate in submitting petitions and pleas for you personal advocacies. My latest petition is to free the two Japanese activists who were arrested for allegedly stealing whale meat wherein they presented those whale meats as evidence, as a basis of corruption in the midst of government's whaling programme, follow the full story.

I was asked when and where do I plant. Well I can say that I do it here, online! With my busy schedule planting a tree, literally, is unatainable though I would love to that! The last time I planted a tree was on highschool, but I think I did planted cactuses and orchids years after that, haha. Anyways, we have lots of plants at home.

Be an online activist! There are many means on how to fight global warming or whatever advocacy you might be interested with, one of them is to blog online and give information about it. Imagine how many people are logging-online and some of them will be routed to your page and touched by one of your posts. Luckily, that person could be planting the next day or a corporate leader might stop deforestation at will.

Again, my simple advocacy is for a tree to survive, with them we'll survive.

Join Greenpeace.org and be informed!

PASIG EARTH YEAR

This year, Pasig City is 435 years older and we are celebrating it with a BANG! Various programs are laid for the Pasiguenios like the yearly Mutya ng Pasig, Drum and Lyre show, competitions, parades, Senior citizen pageant, etc. but what caught my attention is the EARTH YEAR campaign. Pasig, the Green City, joined the world in fighting against Global Warming. This is a project by the city council headed by our Mayor Bobby Eusebio.

I've been living in this tree plushed city for almost 13 years now. I was originally born in Manila but we migrated to Pasig to literally experience a cleaner environment. I did my elementary years and a year of highschool in Pasig Catholic College, formerly a school exclusively for boys. My family emigrated from Pasig to Antipolo, my second hometown, where i finished my highschool in Roosevelt College Cainta. I spent almost all of my college years in Antipolo, after attending in UST then eventually in UDMC as a nursing student. Before graduation, my family went back to Pasig for undisclosed issues and until now we still reside in a compound with our extended family, like a returnee.

Going back to the Earth Year campaign, the projects that were enumerated to be carried out during the celebation are:

1. Intensified tree-planting (I strongly advocate this!)

2. LPG-conversion of government-owned vehicles

3. Activation of waste-treatment plant (After all, Pasig City claims to be the "Recycling Capital of the Philippines"

4. Installation of Solar-powered lamp posts (Wow, kind of cool, but will it only be aroud the city hall?)

5. Launch of Bantay-ilog (I like this!)

6. and Earth Day celeblation

Apart from these are the Anti-Crime drive, Kalusugan ng Mamamayan project, Family Planning/ Senior Citizen/ Dental Program and Discover Pasig. Apparently, the city government aim to convert Pasig City into a tourist destination.

I do hope that all of these projects, programs and advocacies will be carried out well, as planned, with good results! As the local government aim for a greener city then we should to, from ourselves, project a greener world for a better tommorow!

for more information log on to: PASIG CITY ONLINE!