Why does most carbon footprint calculators ignore the fact?

Question

that many people have a garden, which will reduce your carbon emissions. For example if you have aforest on your back yard, your carbon footprint could be negative.

Answer 1

Carbon footprint - is just another way to make the public feel guilty about living their lives and an excuse to con more money out of you to be wasted on something that today's Buzz word.

Answer 2

Let us look at this scientifically.  Plants have a process called photosynthesis, animals have a process called cellular respiration.  I am simplyfying a bit here but, plants live off the carbon animals give off and animals live off the oxygen and glucose plants create, the two must be equal in order to maintain equilibrium.  If there is too much of one or the other there is a problem in the equation.

Answer 3

carbon footprints are bull ****

Answer 4

Those Calculators just look at the footprint generated by a single event, such as a plane journey. If they asked questions about all your mitigating factors like "Do you have a forest in your backyard?", it could get very silly.

Answer 5

Can't quite understand whay there are so many anti - green or environmentally unaware people posting replies in the Green Living section!

Answer 6

And the carbon footprint is also calculated by the services the US government provides to its citizens: police, roads, libraries, the court system and the military.

But the biggest factors in most people's lives were the obvious energy-users: housing, transportation and food. "The simple way you get people's carbon use down is to tax it," Gutowski says. For example taxes on private vehicles and subsidies on public transport; more people will travel by bus, tube, or train reducing overall emissions. Governments should also try to use more electric or hybrid buses.

Answer 7

Not really, everywhere I walk I leave a "carbon footprint."  We are,  after all, carbon-based life forms.  

Boy, wouldn't Al Gore love to tax every step we took, eh?

Answer 8

Good point J G.

Answer 9

"your carbon footprint could be negative?"

actually not.

your garden doesn't absorb in a year, what your car emits before it gets out of the driveway.

your forest is carbon neutral.  it absorbs carbon to grow, then releases it when trees die and decay.  or you burn the wood.

Answer 10

These only include your home and travel.

Answer 11

Yes the plants have done a great job.