Carbon Footprint

My Carbon Footprint
UNST 171E

Almost everything we do in our day to day lives emits carbon into the atmosphere. The threat and knowledge of global warming has been around for awhile and recently it has become a hot topic. As the years go on, more and more evidence is showing how much we are affecting the earth’s climate with our everyday activities. With this new evidence more discoveries and inventions are being made in order to reduce carbon emissions and help us toward a better and environmentally healthier life.
Carbon Dioxide is a greenhouse gas along with methane, nitrous oxide, and fluorocarbons. It is the most prominent in Earth's atmosphere. The Greenhouse Gases pie chart below shows the makeup of the atmosphere and how much of each greenhouse gas it contains. Ever since the 19th century there has been studies on how and why carbon affects our climate. They all started with questions of how the prehistoric ice ages occurred, and during these studies they discovered climate problems affecting the present and future as well. Carbon Dioxide along with the other gases in the atmosphere creates a “greenhouse effect” and can alter the planet’s climate. The greenhouse effect is when sunlight reaches the earth’s surface, some of it becomes heat and these gases trap it and keep in the heat near the surface, keeping the earth warm. These gases regulate the earth’s temperature and without them the earth would be frozen.

Greenhouse Gases
http://www.umich.edu/~gs265/society/greenhouse.htm

Carbon is emitted into the atmosphere in many different ways. It is naturally emitted by plant and animal decay, but there are also many manmade carbon emitters. The pie chart below shows a breakdown of major carbon emitters. Some examples of these are; the coal, oil, and natural gas we use to do things like heat building, have electricity, and power our cars. Fossil Fuels were created chiefly by the decay of plants from millions of years ago. All of these fuels include...