Categories

When you type in the words "Zero Out Carbon" in Google, over 22,500,000 English pages come up with most of them referring to the same thing: the House of Legislature fails to zero out carbon as promised, at a loss of $89,000 already spent on a failure to cancel out 24,000 tons of emission. During a time when every penny is being watched, it is no wonder that Nancy Pelosi and the House very quietly sent out a couple of emails to reporter stating as such, as compared to the very loud promise by the very same House that they would "lead by example to fight global warming, becoming the first legislature in the world to zero out its carbon impact on the planet."

Not a big surprise to major industries around the world that were extremely cautious about the big promises, James Murray of Business Green stated last December that he feared the UK legislature would water down its outline of zero-carbon home definitions. And to be fair, the $89,000 of the United States money already spent involved the purchase of "offsets" which funded projects reducing greenhouse gases. But it also was said to buy "bragging rights" for the House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other congressional leaders.

Unfortunately, at this time United States carbon markets are not regulated, making it extremely difficult to prove environmental benefits and whether or not they have accurately calculated the carbon numbers. What has been successful toward the goal is the purchasing of wind power from a company that produces the House their electricity, increasing the share of natural gas for the House's heating and cooling, and replacing over 10,000 incandescent bulbs with efficient compact fluorescent lights—totaling the reduction of 74%. This is still an excellent move, even though it was not quite the 100% they said was coming. So they basically are stuck for awhile cutting pollution by reducing gases blamed for global warming.

But zero out carbon is making big moves on a global basis, with approximately 100 zero-carbon data centers for green computing being spread throughout the world. Hoping to reduce the carbon imprint of information and communication technology (ICT) which is contributing three to four percent of the world's CO2 emissions, the ICT industry has started relocating their computing facilities to renewable energy sites for their zero-carbon data centers.

Considered a measurement of all greenhouse gases we produce on an individual, carbon footprints that we leave behind us has devastating amounts of carbon dioxide. Every day greenhouse gases are produced on an individual basis through burning fossil fuels for the purposes of transportation, heating and electricity: home which involves gas, oil, and coal; recreation and leisure 14%; our share of public services 12%; home electricity 12%; private transportation 10%; house furnishings and buildings 9%; car manufacture and delivery 7%; holiday flights 6%; food and drinks 5%; clothes and personal effects 4%; public transportation 3%; and financial services 3%.

These are divided into two levels of carbon footprints, primary and secondary. Primary is considered a measure of our CO2 direct emissions from burning of fossil fuels, while the secondary footprint is a measure of the indirect CO2 emissions from the lifecycle of products we use.