What are the causes of carbon footprints?

Question

what are the main causes of emission of carbon in the atmosphere?

Answer 1

In the old days, volcanoes, animals exhaling, methane from decomposition, a burning forest might release carbon or other greenhouse gases.  

Nowdays, people mine coal and oil, and release methane much faster.  

Answer 2

A carbon footprint is a "measure of the impact human activities have on the environment in terms of the amount of greenhouse gases produced, measured in units of carbon dioxide".[1] It is meant to be useful for individuals, nations and organizations to conceptualize their personal (or organizational) impact in contributing to global warming. A conceptual tool in response to carbon footprints are carbon offsets, or the mitigation of carbon emissions through the development of alternative projects such as solar or wind energy or reforestation. The carbon footprint is a subset of the ecological footprint, which includes all human demands on the biosphere.

Reducing a carbon footprint

The carbon footprint can be efficiently and effectively reduced by applying the following steps:

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to accurately determine the current carbon footprint

Identification of hot-spots in terms of energy consumption and associated CO2-emissions

Where possible, changing to another electricity company to switch to buying electricity from renewable sources (from wind turbines, solar panels or hydroelectrical plants -or- from nuclear power plants

Optimisation of energy efficiency and, thus, reduction of CO2-emissions and reduction of other GHG emissions contributed from production processes

Identification of solutions to neutralise the CO2 emissions that cannot be eliminated by energy saving measures. This last step includes carbon offsetting; investment in projects that aim at the reducing CO2 emissions, for instance tree planting.

Answer 3

Here are the man-made source in the united states, in the order of magnitude:

1) Operating buildings (heating, cooling, lighting)

2) Transportation (cars, planes, etc)

3) Utilities (power plants)

4) Industry (manufacturing, etc.)  

Answer 4

EVERYTHING.

Answer 5

The environmentalist think that depends on how much CO2 U put in the atmosphere. Sorry but plants need CO2 to live and they have almost eliminated the CO2....