Carbon footprint

It's one of those new fads that come out every now and then.  Only that it is so important it potentially means life and death to all living creatures including us humans.  Or maybe probably not, not all living organisms I mean, for some are so resilient they continue to exist across the centuries.  Size even doesn't matter, for while dinosaurs became instinct because of a little cold, cockroaches remain as they after thousands of years.  It is even said that this species can survive even a nuclear bomb!  This is maybe why everybody hates them.

In recent times, the world's attention is drawn towards "Climate Change" issues.  I had it capitalized because it's more than just some changes in weather here and there, although more and more people really do notice that the weather now is not the same as when we were young, especially those who are as old as me.  I could not remember any of my teachers in elementary school speak of climate change.  We did hear of such phrases as "global warming," but those were usually in Science or Geology classes.  Nothing to be concerned about or consider a matter worth protesting on the streets, as we do now.

Climate change is a world changing phenomenon which may be considered as an Extinction Level Event (E.L.E.) such as those which we see in the movies, like when a meteor hits the earth.  Climate change is caused by global warming, which is the very slow increase in the average temperature of the earth's atmosphere.  It is so slow that nobody notices it and even scientists have a hard time confirming it, much more convincing people it is happening and may change the course of human history or even existence.  Yet today, it is in the agenda of every country of the world, a part of every government's mandate, and a matter of news.

It is so slow that people take it for granted.  The most common comment I hear is, "I would already be dead and my grandchildren's grandchildren would have been past dead when anything significant will happen as to making human beings extinct from this earth.  And so we go on our merry lives.  Most people won't think about it or believe it will never happen.  Others are so concerned they'd march on the street against any form of continued activity contributing to the world's end.  Somewhere in-between probably lays the truth.

Global warming is caused by emissions of greenhouse gases.  We'll try to discuss in detail these chemical substances in a later article but in brief, these are gases which absorb or emit heat in such a way that it causes greenhouse effects in our atmosphere and thus induce a warming effect.  This might constitute a very minute effect on the temperature, but over the years this may accumulate to a few degrees of increases enough to change the weather across the globe.  Remember the "Ice Age" we studied in high school science or physics classes?  Or see in the computer-animated comedy-drama adventure film of the same title.

While greenhouse gases consist of six or more kinds of gases, it is carbon dioxide which stands out as the most popular, or notorious, gas which scientists and ordinary people talk about as the main culprit in this possible E.L.E.  For some reason or another, we have simplified this to carbon, the element being part of most, if not all "organic" portions of the universe.  And so it all boils down to how much carbon dioxide-equivalent we emit to the atmosphere for whatever activity we do.  The more we emit to the air, the more we contribute to global warming and climate change.  That's why we call it the carbon footprint.

It has come to become such a fad that there are now carbon footprint "calculators" available in the internet or apps in your iPhone or other android smartphones.  A friend is an avid user of these apps that he computes his carbon footprint for every activity he does every day.  Reminds me of the "calorie" fad, too, where health conscious people took note of all the calories certain food items contain.  Or how much calories a person "spend" for any activity he does.  But carbon footprint is much more than a fad.  If we are conscious about these numbers, we may be in the right direction towards contributing to the future of the human race. (to be continued)