My carbon footprint is 6.10 tonnes. It is above the world average by 2 metric tonnes! Yes I was surprised. But I do question the precision of the Secondary Calculation (4.45t). It seems to be far too generalist. In my experience it is not just the footprint which differs between first world and third world, but the shoe itself varies enormously too. Packaging is not the same, nor is recycling. For example, just the other day I learnt that local incinerators charge a fixed rate per kilo of waste, whether it be medical or paper. The average footprint for people in Zimbabwe is 0.81 tonnes. The world average is 4 and the goal is for 2. The household footprint (I live in a house share) would be considerably higher if it were not for the power cuts (a third per week). Because of these we use 20 candles per month. This said the geysers are on timers. We already grow a lot of our own vegetables, buying the rest as needed, the meat eggs milk dog food etc. We eat red meat perhaps once a week and white meat on average 3 times per week. Our current goal is to install two solar geysers by the end of the year. In terms of organic Zimbabwe is a revolutionary. Pesticides are too expensive and GMO is illegal. Of course imported goods (+70%) do not have these same restrictions. As of last week Thursday the government banned the import of food products that can be produced locally. This is good in theory but we are yet to see its feasibility in practice. As you may or may not know, we currently have very few commercial farms and it is yet to be seen whether the subsistence agriculture of the peri-urban can support the 3 million city dwellers. On second thought, taking in to consideration all the trucking of fresh produce, this secondary process of 4.45 tonnes is possibly an undervaluation of my actual carbon impact. I shall have to plant 1074 trees this World Arbor Day.
Posted on: Sun, 06 Jul 2014 20:11:18 +0000
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