Linda, these are the numbers for the average Dutch person. That's why she recommends putting your own numbers in. The absolute impact of flying is definitely bigger than that of driving a car, but apparently the average Dutchie flies not that much (many people don't fly at all..) while using the car relatively more and this comes out worse for the cars in total average emission. Maybe also because cars get replaced more often and the non-current use part of it is higher? For me as a person the flying is definitely higher and the car at 0 so it's a very personal thing :).
I find the getting children one a tough one - do we count the kid as a full extra person to add to your impact (or half as shared with other parent)? And from what age not anymore? Because in that case you wouldn't have to count the impact of the child itself anymore if it's already counted with the parents.. I think saying you can fly and drive as much as you want when not having a child is bullshit. When I put in a calculator my footprint is already blows up to 2.5x the earth with a childless life (average Dutch person is at 3.6x I think), so adding a child would make it worse but not having the child doesn't make me an environmental saint.
I couldn't figure out where to put in my own numbers, so I used another random calculator:
http://footprint.wwf.org.uk/carbon/footprint.
My footprint is half of UK average.
My travel is high, because this year I made both a domestic and a European flight and will probably make one more European flight later this year. I also made my commuting car use a bit higher than actual, because we use the car quit a bit on weekends when we travel away. I do try to walk to work once or twice a week, but that is not in my results.
Buying stuff scored quite good this year, because exactly this year we didn't buy any big and electronic stuff. But we did in the previous 3 years. :-( For buying clothes in a typical month I chose 0, because the next step was way higher than those very few items I bought this year.
I guess my home scores quite good, because I checked off for renewable energy, as Norway in general has water powered energy. This clean energy is by the way also sold on paper to Europeans to give them good conscience, the same energy sold twice. I also use wood for warming up, but couldn't register a combination of wood and electricity.
For food, I am making an effort to eat less meat and less red meat. We eat vegetarian maybe once a week on average. But I still eat meat in most meals and had to choose that option. Even though we have been eating quite a bit of self-caught fish this year, it was not enough to make a major impact on our eating footprint. I also answered that I eat quite a bit of non local food, as I am not very aware of that when I buy stuff. And I regularly eat stuff like kiwi's. I think even a lot of wheat used in Norwegian bread comes from Brazil, because we have a dangerous fungus in our wheat.
