From Solar Electric Light Fund: Becoming ‘carbon neutral’ means that you have neutralized the effect of your personal greenhouse gas emissions, so that your personal and household activities no longer contribute to the dangers of global warming.
On average, 25% of US and Canadian emissions come from our personal activities. The rest comes from industry, commerce, agriculture, oilfields, trucking, defence, and so on. So far, no-one has developed a way to measure the carbon emissions of all the things we buy (cars, houses, food, stuff), which require energy to manufacture, ship, and package, so those emissions are not included in that 25%.
Global climate change is an enormous problem, that needs our urgent attention. A January 2004 study from a team of conservation biologists based at the University of Leeds, Britain, concluded that by 2050, if temperatures continue to increase as forecast, between 15% and 37% of all land-based animals and plants will become extinct; around one million species. This is on our watch, while we are the ones who are responsible, with the ability to reduce this toll.
In addition to striving to reduce your personal emissions, becoming carbon neutral at the household level is one way to exercise this responsibility.
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