2018-2019 Carbon Impact Report
Executive Summary
As a result of inspiration from my peers taking action (in particular Holden Bonwit’s family carbon assessment) and the global youth movement around climate change (Fridays for Future), I have completed a full assessment of my estimated carbon emissions for the past two years. The purpose of the exercise was to 1) understand individual carbon emission sources and my own individual habits, 2) offset my impact through funding of carbon offset programs, 3) use the information gained from the assessment to improve my future carbon emission behavior, and 4) encourage others to engage in the climate change debate and/or solution.
My assessment (full report here, summary below) found that over the two years, I was responsible for 39.12 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2e) or 19.56 tCO2e per year. This is almost perfectly in line with the US average of 20 tCO2e per year. As a result, I will be offsetting my roughly 40 tCO2e over the course of 2020 by contributing about $530 (roughly $15 per metric tonne of CO2e) to carbon offset programs through both the Arbor Day Foundation reforestation projects, and Gold Standard carbon offset projects.
Based on more detailed emission data from the assessment, in 2020 I intend to limit air travel as much as possible (or offset flights upfront), reduce the amount of newly manufactured goods I purchase, and continue to perform a yearly carbon emission assessment, but next year with additional confidence through additional research and factors of safety.
If you’re reading this and have made it this far, I highly encourage you to think about performing an assessment for yourself or for your family based on the details below and your own research. That being said, if you don’t have the time right now, consider running with the national average emissions for the US, 20 tCO2e per person, and consider offsetting your footprint for the year based on that average at the link here. When it comes to the climate change solution, I am reminded of a quote by Mother Teresa. “None of us, including me, ever do great things. But we can all do small things, with great love, and together we can do something wonderful.” We can all do our part, however small, to show our love for one another and for this planet. Together, we can make a difference.
Introduction
The first time I learned about global warming was probably like many Americans introduction to the issue. I saw An Inconvenient Truth in the movie theaters. At the time I was 15 and honestly can’t even really remember what my reaction was to it. Fast forward ten years, and while during that time I did learn to be a better steward of the earth (recycling, composting, shorter showers, less plastics, etc. - thanks Zack) it wasn’t until I watched Cowspiracy that I really internalized the impact carbon emissions have on the environment. My sister and I became vegetarians, and from that moment on, I started to actively educate myself more about the issue.
Over the next three years major events in the climate change timeline would occur. In 2015 the Paris Climate Agreement would be drafted, and in being signed in 2016 would seal an agreement by nearly 200 state parties to keep the average global increase in temperature above pre-industrial levels well below the 2 degrees celsius needed to reduce the impact and risks from climate change. Only a year later, President Trump would withdraw the US from the agreement. In 2018 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) would release the special report detailing the irreversible effects of a 1.5 degree celsius rise in global warming from pre-industrial levels.
Throughout all of this major change, I again remained up to date with what was happening in the news regarding climate change, and continued to do my part as a steward of the earth, but ultimately my habits didn’t change much. After quitting my job in 2019, I started to prioritize a large portion of my free time to learning more about issues that affect the US and the world. A lot of my time has been spent focusing on US politics, but I’ve also found the time in 2019 to dive into climate change more and more. It started with actually reading the IPCC’s special report from 2018, and watching some of the latest climate change documentaries.
Initially watching the Leonardo DiCaprio produced doc Before the Flood, I was certainly pessimistic about our chances combating climate change. Especially watching it a couple years after it was released, in the wake of the IPCC’s special report and the US dropping out of the Paris Agreement. Not much after however, I watched the follow up, Ice on Fire, and was left with a completely different mindset. After watching all of the scientists in the film speak to all the work they’re doing to combat climate change through carbon sequestration, it got me thinking that there may be a chance still, even if there is a lack of direction and focus from government institutions to combat climate change through reduced carbon emissions.
With that spark and more information about carbon offsetting at my fingertips, I started down the path of looking into my carbon emissions and what I could do about them. Fortunately for me, my friend Holden had just done his own family assessment, so after seeing the detailed work he did, I decided to follow in his path and do my own assessment. Progress was slow in the van until my sister and I went to the first Fridays for the Future rally, for us in St. John, New Brunswick at the time. Upon seeing all of the youth at the rally standing up for climate change activism, I knew it was time to make something happen, and actually make some change as it related to the cause at hand.
Standing with the youth in St. John, New Brunswick for the first Fridays for Future rally in September of 2019.
Assessment Overview
Okay, let’s get down to brass tax about how I went about my two year assessment (full report here). As I mentioned above I had a great starting point in my friend Holden’s assessment. Additionally I took inspiration from many of the online calculators out there that you can use to give you an idea of what your carbon footprint is, such as CarbonFootprint.com and The Nature Conservancy. Based on all of that for inspiration, I realized that the main areas of emission for myself would be from transportation, food, housing, and secondary emissions from goods and services purchased.
So for each of those categories, I began to research what the emission sources and standards were for each category, and build out a spreadsheet to track my information. Through my research, I decided to detail the following for each category:
Transportation: This category is usually the largest for most Americans (especially if you fly) but thankfully it’s probably the easiest to wrap our heads around and standardize. Transportation emissions come from any mode of transport that we use to get from A to B, that relies on petrol or some non-renewable energy source. Typically, we can estimate well (or know exactly if we track well enough) how far we travel through each source, and then standards for emissions can be found online. As with any category, you can see details regarding my source for each emission item in the report spreadsheet.
Food: As we move onto food things get a little bit trickier. There are a lot of different ways to calculate your emissions for food as they are all typically secondary emissions (i.e. emissions that you the consumer did not directly create but are arguably responsible for as you created the demand for the goods created - yes, this is a huge can of worms and something to be discussed at length, but the general idea is that we need to take accountability so if not you, then who?). Sources vary and the emissions vary based on the type of diet that you have, but reputable sources, I used ShrinkThatFootprint.com which bases their numbers off of the ERS/USDA, make it easy to give you a sense of how much your diet impacts your footprint.
Housing: The emission cost associated with powering and heating your house is one that can either be super easy or really difficult. This all depends on how much information your utility company gives you regarding your power and heating sources. Sometimes it’s quite easy and the utility company even tells you what your emissions are when you ask, or (as was my case) I really just had to use a local standard for the city of Chicago and assume that my power and heating are about the same as the averages. My exact sources are in the full report, but this brings up a more important point with this entire assessment, which is practicality over perfection. Are any of my numbers perfect? Probably not. But the main point is to get an understanding of how we’re doing, and most importantly, address the issue by making changes and supporting projects that can actually counteract one’s own emissions.
Secondary Emissions from Goods and Services: This category was easily the hardest to define. There’s the issue I detailed above regarding secondary emissions and who is responsible for what, and then once you decide, there’s the question of how you calculate it. After lots of research, I found the easiest way for me to get within the ballpark, was to understand how much I spend each month on goods and services, and then calculate my secondary emissions through a third party calculator. Again, is it perfect? Definitely not. But it’s better than nothing for now.
Just as a note on this, one area I did look more closely into was the emissions associated with the manufacture of the van I bought. They’re absolutely massive. To offset them in one year would be a large effort, so given my current financial situation, I decided to make a pledge to offset them as the loan I’ve taken out for the van runs its course.
As I was moving along and calculating emissions for each category laid out above, I noticed that I’ve lived three very distinct lifestyles over the course of the last two years: that of a consultant traveling very often for work, that of a non-traveler working from home, and someone who lives in a van. For that reason, I also decided to divide my assessment up based on these three lifestyles, more so just to see how the numbers would shake out for each, knowing I was still mainly interested in the gross total for offsetting.
Results and Takeaways
The full results of my assessment can be found at the link here. As for the key takeaways, I want to share some numbers and charts that show how the emissions break down across the different categories and lifestyles.
Summary of total emissions and yearly emission estimates for each lifestyle and emission category. All numbers in tCO2e.
As you can see, overall my total emissions for the past two years was 39.12 tCO2e, or on average 19.56 tCO2e per year. As mentioned previously, I was surprised to see how close my emission habits were to the US average which is right around 20 tCO2e. As I looked closer into each emission category total for the two years, there is one clear culprit, which is transportation, which accounts for over half of my emissions. This is easily the number one area where I can improve moving forward by being more conscious with my travel (especially flights) and offsetting ahead of time when possible. Of the other three emission categories, goods and services account for about 20% of my emissions, and food and housing for about 10% each. Upon looking at emissions broken down by lifestyle (as shown in the chart below), this is where probably the most surprising takeaway from the assessment came.
Yearly carbon emission estimates, in tCO2e, for each lifestyle and emission category.
As you can see in the chart, my emissions where relatively similar across all three lifestyles of consulting, home life, and van life. I was really surprised to see this outcome, but after looking at the numbers it does make sense. From my consulting lifestyle to home life lifestyle, there is about a 20% reduction in emissions, mainly coming from transportation as I was flying considerably less when I didn’t have a job. Probably the most surprising however was that van life is the second-most emitting lifestyle after consulting. The major driver for this was that the building of the van and purchase of a newly manufactured vehicle produces a serious amount of secondary emissions. The takeaway for me here being that major transitions in lifestyle usually require a large purchase of new good which consequently drive up one’s footprint, and additionally the purchase of a new car or home can significantly impact one’s footprint as again secondary emissions are massive for these types of purchases even when prorating the emissions/offsets over the course of the purchase of the item (as I did with spreading those secondary emissions out over 6 years).
Action
As important as self-education of the issues and what contributes to the issues is, it is equally, if not more so, important that we all do what we can to take individual action to help the cause. One of the great ways to do so is to support carbon offset programs, that work hard on projects that aim to either sequester carbon from the atmosphere, or reduce carbon emissions through introduction of new technologies in place of old ones. Again, standing on the shoulders of my friend Holden, he put together a list of carbon offset organizations, which details what they do to offset carbon, how much it costs, how credible they are, and much more.
Based on that list, I decided to purchase offsets through the Arbor Day Foundation reforestation projects, and Gold Standard carbon offset projects. As my total emissions to offset are close to 40 tCO2e for the past two years, I plan to offset my emissions over the course of 2020 by contributing about $530 (roughly $15 per metric tonne of CO2e) over the course of 12 months to the reforestation efforts ($30 a month), and Gold Standard projects that are supporting reduction of American emissions ($15 a month).
Based on my emission patterns, I’ve also recognized that there are some areas of my life that I can work on changing my behavior for the better of the planet. In 2020 I intend to limit air travel as much as possible (or offset flights upfront), reduce the amount of newly manufactured goods I purchase to nearly zero, and continue to perform a yearly carbon emission assessment, but next year with additional confidence through additional research and factors of safety. My hope is that with the coming years I can reduce my carbon footprint (as confirmed by future assessments) but continue to offset similar numbers to that of which I’m emitting now so that I can account for my own emissions and then some. As I’ve said a few times, calculating personal emissions is not an exact science as of yet, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have value as an activity and subsequently as something that spurs action to support carbon offset programs.
Call to Action
TL:DR - If you feel compelled to take part in the fight against climate change, be sure to get out and DO something about it. Get out there and educate yourself, understand where you sit in relation to the problem, and empathize with how others are affected by the problem. And then most importantly, get your feet wet and enact change. Reach out and encourage your lawmakers to support and pass positive climate change legislation, give your time and volunteer with support organizations, or if you have money to give, support projects that help offset carbon emissions. “Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” - Barack Obama
Caution Reader: Beware of Soap Box
I’ll be the first to say it: this self assessment was hard and cumbersome. The more you start digging into understanding your carbon footprint and all that goes into it, you are often left with more questions than you have answers. That at times can be very defeating, and when looking at your annual carbon footprint (~20 tCO2e) and comparing it to the massive annual carbon footprint of the world (~34 GtCO2e = ~34,000,000,000 tCO2e) we can easily start to wonder why the hell am I doing this, and is it really going to make a difference?
To that valid question, I think we have to ask ourselves a simple, but profound, question of why we elect to do anything these days? We live in a time where if you are reading this on your phone or computer (which is really the only place I’ll be sharing it) then you have, at your fingertips, access to more information than you could ever possibly consume, that can lead you to more opportunity than anyone like you who ever came before you. So with so much to choose from, why do anything?
This is a question I’ve struggled with for years and with all the free time I now have, is something I think about probably more than the average bear. For me, it really all comes down to motivation. A lot of what I currently seek in life, especially in areas like that of finding a career, is internal motivators. What about something I choose to do motivates me to continue to do it, over and over and over, to the point where I will routinely elect to use my most valuable asset given to me, time, in order to continue my pursuit?
Now, interestingly enough, what I have found in my reflection is that one of my biggest internal motivators is empathy. The process of standing in someone else’s shoes, looking through their eyes to better understand their difficulties and hardships, and then sharing in those feelings, stands to me to be one of the greatest motivators of all to do something. And so by way of understanding empathy as an internal motivator, I have indirect external motivations from others, but selfishly, I adopt the motivation as mine in order to work alongside them and with them. And this is the case with my motivation to do something about climate change.
I have lived nothing short of a privileged life, and I try each day to keep this in perspective. The likelihood that climate change could impact my personal life at home for the next 20 to 30 years is highly unlikely, however, I am also aware of what it is doing just this past year to millions of people across the globe. More than 7 million people were displaced in the first half of 2019 from hydrometeorlogical events, and global hunger is again on the rise in 2018 with nearly 1 out of every 9 individuals going without food due to the increase in droughts across the globe (WMO Provisional Statement on the State of the Global Climate in 2019). On top of that, I fully understand that while my generation will carry some weight of the effects of climate change should nothing be done, I know that the effects felt by the generations after us, the one of which I hope to some day have children apart of, will be far greater.
So for me, my motivation is not about that which directly impacts me, but rather what I can understand others are feeling and suffering from. I feel lucky to be in a position to help those that I can because of the resources available to me, and so if that means that performing a carbon assessment and offsetting my emissions can lead to supporting the global community at need some day, then count me in for life.
So, why the rant? Well, this is my story of why I care. You may resonate with it, or have a completely different reason for why you believe it’s time to do something about the climate, but what I think is most important, is that you know your reason. That you can tell your story, and that your story can propel you to action. For once you know your story, there is no stopping you from making the change you wish to see.
Thanks
Before I end, I wanted to give an enormous thank you to Holden Bonwit for motivating me to reflect more deeply about where I sit with the issue of climate change, how I want to address it personally, and giving me all of his resources to help perform my assessment. Here’s to hoping I can be the spark for someone else.
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out at jakman91@gmail.com
