Budget your emissions like your finances!

[NorCal]

Here’s the challenge:  Budget your annual emissions similar to your finances.

I’ve always been a numbers-oriented person (yes, I do work in finance & accounting), so I figured I’d look at my carbon footprint quantitatively instead of emotionally.

Step 1: Estimate your households’ annual emissions for the last year or two, and build a budget for this year. 

I personally did it in a spreadsheet, but I found an online calculator at https://terrapass.com/carbon-footprint-calculator if you want the easy version.

If you want to do it in a spreadsheet, here’s the information I found on the emissions of various fuels:
1.   For electricity, you can find CO2 emissions / kwh by state at https://www.epa.gov/egrid/data-explorer.  The latest data is 2020, but it seems to be the best data out there.  Some utilities also publish their own emissions intensity as well. I used the number provided by my utility.
2.   Natural gas produces 11.7lbs of emissions per therm (source: https://www.epa.gov/energy/greenhouse-gas-equivalencies-calculator)
3.   Gasoline produced 19.6lbs of emissions per gallon (same EPA source)
4.   I used the Terrapass calculator for emissions related to flying.

Step 2: See if there’s any actions you can take to reduce your 2022 emissions.  Post your numbers here to help hold yourself accountable. 

I haven’t gotten to the math on the emissions related to what we eat and the stuff we buy.  I'd like to eventually include that as well.

I hope this is a valuable exercise in understanding where your emissions are coming from, and what can be done to reduce them. 

[NorCal]

Here’s where I came out.  We’re a family of 4 living in Denver.  I haven’t tracked the exact mileage we’ve driven over the last few years, so I made a reasonable guestimate.  I pulled the energy use directly from my bills. 

My budget is an attachment to this post.  I'd also be happy to share my spreadsheet if it's helpful.

I originally went into this exercise thinking that there would be some habit-changes that I could take on for some small savings.  It turns out our prior Mustachian habit building took care of a lot of the “easy” things already.  We don’t have much of a commute in the household, as my wife takes the train to work, and bikes to the train station in good weather.  I’m mostly a stay-at-home parent, but I do take on an occasional contracting project, which I do from home.  I would like to bike to school with the kids more, but that’s largely a function of my 4 year old getting more comfortable on the bike.

Here's the story of what I’ve done, and where I’m at:

1.   I bought a home energy monitor to try and optimize my energy usage.  This helped me identify a faulty valve in my hot water recirculator that was causing my hot water heater to kick on for 10 minutes every hour.  It was using a LOT of energy.  I was also able to make some other small optimizations to energy usage.

2.   After fixing this issue, I replaced my gas water heater with a heat-pump variety.  The combination of these changes should drop the emissions from home energy by over 5,000lbs per year compared with my 2020 numbers.   

3.   Travel by car and plane is a tricky one.  We didn’t travel much in 2020, but we did a LOT of road trips in 2021.  I think we’ll do somewhat less in 2022.  The kids are at the age where we’re enjoying road trips to National Parks and other parts of the country.  We’ve done a pretty good job of eliminating short drives around town.  Most of our miles are road-trip miles.  There’s also a wedding we’re going to this year that we plan to fly to.  Thankfully, a short airline flight doesn’t have quite the emissions impact I feared.  This would be different if we were flying a long distance.

4.   I started participating in a program with my utility where I pay an additional $0.015/kwh and the utility buys additional wind power to offset my usage.  While this does reduce the carbon intensity of my electricity, I couldn’t really quantify it, so I didn’t include it as a benefit.  (On a side note, the emissions intensity of my utility seems to be declining at a decent clip, but the latest available numbers are from 2020.  There will be some reductions to factor in once better numbers are available).

Long term plans:  It turns out that our long-term emissions are primarily driven by a small number of large decisions.  My long-term plans are as follows:

1.   Eventually switch to an EV.  I’m not ready to trade in our cars yet, and now seems to be a particularly bad time to buy a car.  But I expect our current cars to be the last gasoline cars we own. 

2.   We currently have a small solar array that generates slightly under 3,000kwh per year.  Our roof has a short life left on it, so I hope to expand the system when we replace the roof.  We live in an area with a lot of hailstorms, so I expect this will be related to a home insurance claim.

3.   I’d eventually like to switch our gas furnace for a heat pump.  There’s no way to financially justify this, but this is ~4,400lbs of annual emissions that there’s no other way to get rid of.  This might be something to do if we get into a OMY situation with our FI date. 

[Zikoris]

I would guess we've been at pretty close to nothing since the pandemic started, since we haven't been on a plane since, but the calculators don't generally work so well for our situation - lots of stuff I don't know (like, utilities are included in my rent and I have no clue how much electricity we use, etc). But I can't imagine two childfree, carfree, zero-waste-leaning, anticonsumer vegans in a 400 square foot studio would be producing any substantial amount of pollution.

[NorCal]

I would guess we've been at pretty close to nothing since the pandemic started, since we haven't been on a plane since, but the calculators don't generally work so well for our situation - lots of stuff I don't know (like, utilities are included in my rent and I have no clue how much electricity we use, etc). But I can't imagine two childfree, carfree, zero-waste-leaning, anticonsumer vegans in a 400 square foot studio would be producing any substantial amount of pollution.

Yep, I'd say you're about as close to zero as you can get.  There's certainly a big difference in the "circle of control" of renters vs. owners when it comes to utilities.

[less4success]

Great idea! For air miles, I'm assuming emission estimates are per passenger (so I had to multiply my air miles times two passengers). Also, I used the EPA regional data for electricity-related emissions, although my local electric utility is actually much greener (only 5% carbon-based).

The biggest (recent) improvement for us was to stop commuting (decreasing our annual mileage by nearly half). The biggest step backward was bumping up our thermostat to 68 (increasing our electricity usage by nearly a quarter). Hopefully eating mostly plant-based helps our efforts as well.

For this year, I'm hoping to drop our thermostat by a degree.

In the future, I'd like to switch to an EV, but I'm going to wait until supply chain-induced price premiums subside. I had planned to buy carbon offsets for our entire footprint, but I haven't been able to pull the trigger yet (for a variety of reasons).

Here's our data (we switched from heating oil to an air-sourced heat pump in 2018 and couldn't be happier with the result):

Year	2019	2020	2021
Usage
Electricity (KWh)	6735	6842	8324
Natural gas (therms)	0	0	0
Gasoline (gallons)	496	251	317
Air travel (miles)	6400	0	0
Emissions
Electricity	4041	4105	4994
Natural gas	0	0	0
Gasoline	9722	4920	6213
Air travel	838	0	0
Total	14601	9025	11207

Unrelated to the challenge, but related to your (NorCal) data, any idea why your electricity usage shot up for 2022?

[NorCal]

Great idea! For air miles, I'm assuming emission estimates are per passenger (so I had to multiply my air miles times two passengers). Also, I used the EPA regional data for electricity-related emissions, although my local electric utility is actually much greener (only 5% carbon-based).

The biggest (recent) improvement for us was to stop commuting (decreasing our annual mileage by nearly half). The biggest step backward was bumping up our thermostat to 68 (increasing our electricity usage by nearly a quarter). Hopefully eating mostly plant-based helps our efforts as well.

For this year, I'm hoping to drop our thermostat by a degree.

In the future, I'd like to switch to an EV, but I'm going to wait until supply chain-induced price premiums subside. I had planned to buy carbon offsets for our entire footprint, but I haven't been able to pull the trigger yet (for a variety of reasons).

Here's our data (we switched from heating oil to an air-sourced heat pump in 2018 and couldn't be happier with the result):

Year	2019	2020	2021
Usage
Electricity (KWh)	6735	6842	8324
Natural gas (therms)	0	0	0
Gasoline (gallons)	496	251	317
Air travel (miles)	6400	0	0
Emissions
Electricity	4041	4105	4994
Natural gas	0	0	0
Gasoline	9722	4920	6213
Air travel	838	0	0
Total	14601	9025	11207

Unrelated to the challenge, but related to your (NorCal) data, any idea why your electricity usage shot up for 2022?

That's pretty good efficiency!  It's interesting to see how our home energy use is roughly comparable, but your home's footprint is less than half of ours.  Our utility is still roughly 30% coal.  At least coal is declining fast here, so my efficiency should improve over time.

I'm glad to hear the heat-pump is working well.  I'm certainly looking forward to that change (if not the related bill).

My assumed electricity increase is based on two things:
1. I switched my water heater from natural gas to a heat-pump variety in December.  It seems to be adding 140-150kwh/month to the electric bill, but that eliminates a lot of natural gas usage.
2. We did a lot of road trips and family visits in 2021.  We were out of the house for almost 6 weeks in 2021.  I assumed some higher usage from just being home more.

[former player]

No air travel, no public transport travel, no gas or oil for home heating.

Electricity:  2,800 Kwh, 100% renewables tariff.
Petrol for car: 1,297 lbs CO2.

Other than that my carbon contributions come from stuff I buy (not much if I can help it, which I mostly can), internet usage (my share of all those server farms) and food (a lot of which is local and vegan but significant food miles for things like soya and year-round fresh tomatoes).

[Arbitrage]

I like the idea; would definitely like to take a crack at it at some point.  I recognize that this is the 'easy' solution, but food and perhaps some major purchases would be nice to add in.  Obviously, documenting every single food item you eat isn't the most feasible task, but perhaps one could get a sense of the average CO2 emission from their diet over a period of time (say, a week) to get a sense for how they might improve.  There are definitely references that could assist with that. 

For major purchases, perhaps at least if you buy a car, new furniture, electronics, anything over some particular dollar threshold that you purchase new rather than used?  A thought.

[NorCal]

I like the idea; would definitely like to take a crack at it at some point.  I recognize that this is the 'easy' solution, but food and perhaps some major purchases would be nice to add in.  Obviously, documenting every single food item you eat isn't the most feasible task, but perhaps one could get a sense of the average CO2 emission from their diet over a period of time (say, a week) to get a sense for how they might improve.  There are definitely references that could assist with that. 

For major purchases, perhaps at least if you buy a car, new furniture, electronics, anything over some particular dollar threshold that you purchase new rather than used?  A thought.

I think a good starting point for food is just getting a good measurement of emissions/lb of different food categories.  I don't know if I'd do a whole budget for food, but if I have the context of 1lb of hamburger is X lbs of emissions and 1lb of ground pork is Y lbs of emissions, it might change some of my meal planning decisions.

I know there have been some recent studies about this, but I haven't had the time to look them up yet.

[Arbitrage]

I've used some tools like this one in the past:

https://ourworldindata.org/environmental-impacts-of-food#the-carbon-footprint-of-eu-diets-where-do-emissions-come-from

Not perfect or exhaustive, but did help get me to make some changes, like substituting ground turkey for beef in the majority of cooking.  I know that veganism is probably best for the environment, but we like our meat.  I'm not going to let perfect be the enemy of good.

[NorCal]

I've used some tools like this one in the past:

https://ourworldindata.org/environmental-impacts-of-food#the-carbon-footprint-of-eu-diets-where-do-emissions-come-from

Not perfect or exhaustive, but did help get me to make some changes, like substituting ground turkey for beef in the majority of cooking.  I know that veganism is probably best for the environment, but we like our meat.  I'm not going to let perfect be the enemy of good.

Thanks for sharing.  That pretty much confirmed what I suspected.  I was surprised to see how high coffee was on the list, although 1lb of coffee is a bit different than 1lb of beef.

This one is tough for me.  I come from a family of cattle ranchers, and enjoyed buying a quarter-beef for our deep freeze now and again.  I certainly don't plan to become vegan or anything, but it looks like the vast majority of the benefit comes from foregoing beef.  I can absolutely substitute out some beef for alternative meats in many meals.

[Arbitrage]

Another interesting calculator I ran across, though it's focused just on meat: 

https://www.omnicalculator.com/ecology/meat-footprint

Never been on that site before, but looks like there might be a lot of cool stuff, not just the calculators.

[Dicey]

Please tell me more about the home energy monitor. Our PG&E bills here in NorCal have really spiked.

[NorCal]

Please tell me more about the home energy monitor. Our PG&E bills here in NorCal have really spiked.

I researched this a decent amount before making a purchase.  The two best known on the market are the Emporia and Sense.  I recall in some blog post that MMM himself uses the Emporia.  I have the Sense, as it was better for how my home is setup.  Mine has paid for itself in helping me identify the water heater problem I mentioned in the first post.  Your mileage will vary entirely on what you find.

My recommendation is to buy the Emporia if all of the breakers in your house are in a single panel with 16 or fewer breakers.  I recommend buying the Sense if you have multiple panels or sub-panels in your home.

The both work on different principles.  With Emporia, you put clamps on the wires at each breaker.  The monitor will tell you how much energy each breaker is using.

The Sense is roughly twice the price, but you only clamp the mains and solar (if applicable).  The Sense uses a machine learning algorithm to detect what different devices are in your house.  Device detection is one of those things you'll have a love/hate relationship with.  It seems like magic when it works correctly.  But there are a lot of things it seems like it should detect that it never will. 

I eventually paired it with some energy monitoring smart plugs (there's an integration), and I'm happy with how much of my house I have monitored.  I've also started using the combination of the monitor and smart plugs for a few things I hadn't originally expected.  I can now schedule a lot of devices / vampire loads, and I can control my printer and hot water recirculator in on-demand fashion.  I also have the Sense notify me if my garage door opens when I'm on vacation. 

[Dicey]

Wow! Thanks NorCal, that's great info. Our house is one of the newest ones in an older neighborhood, but PG&E consistently says our usage is above average, which makes no sense. I'll share this info with DH today. Our recirc is only manual and we control it via Google Home, but there has to be some vampire somewhere, maybe a whole family of them.

[NorCal]

Wow! Thanks NorCal, that's great info. Our house is one of the newest ones in an older neighborhood, but PG&E consistently says our usage is above average, which makes no sense. I'll share this info with DH today. Our recirc is only manual and we control it via Google Home, but there has to be some vampire somewhere, maybe a whole family of them.

Having gone down this rabbit-hole myself, I can say with confidence that every home is different.  There's what you use and how you use it.  Sometimes it's a malfunctioning device, sometimes it's a vampire load somewhere, and sometimes it's something completely different.  Sometimes it's actionable, and sometimes it's not.  Some of the surprises I found when I got the monitor:

1. I always knew the dryer was a big user, but I didn't appreciate how much power it actually drew.  It can pull over 5kw when on, and represents over 10% of our monthly non-summer use.
2. On the flip side, our dishwasher and washing machine use hardly any electricity.  Combined, they're about 2% of my monthly non-summer usage.
3. The radon fan uses a stupid amount of electricity.  It only draws 60W, but it's on 24x7, so that's 7.5% of our energy usage. 
4. While my computer isn't a huge energy user, the difference between a desktop and a laptop is monumental.  The three laptops and ipad in our house use so little energy I can't even see them on the power monitor.  My desktop (which gets used more) uses a full ~25kwh of energy a month. 
5. The small "always-on" vampire devices are super-tiny on an individual level, but add up to a LOT of energy.  According to Sense, I have a pretty small "always on" load compared to a typical house, but it still accounts for nearly 16% of my usage, and is nearly 1,200kwh/year.  That's massive!

[Queen Frugal]

This is a great idea!  I worked up my own spreadsheet and figured out some huge inefficiencies in my own home.  Namely, I'm on a peak demand electricity plan and I have been diligently not using electricity during peak hours for the last few years.  However, until today, I didn't realize that my hot water heater and forced air heater run on GAS.  Oops!  I'll be turning up my heat today thank you very much.  And I'll start conserving during what I thought were "cheap" times of day.

Also, my gasoline consumption on my old gas guzzler is 59% of the household energy usage.  That helps solidify my decision to buy an EV when market conditions allow.

[A mom]

Thanks for doing this. I had not done a calculation in over a decade. Pretty clear that our big problem is heating our house. We don't use the cars much and have solar panels on the roof, but heating our 1950s ranch through a frigid mid-western winter uses a lot of fuel. Not sure what to do about that. We already have a lot of insulation in the attic and I hear mixed things about the benefits of insulating the walls. We still have the original windows, but they are well made and no one has ever indicated that it would be a good idea to replace them. Will think about air source heat pump, but furnace is only 8 years old. Happy to hear from anyone who has advice on any of the above.

[bacchi]

Like NorCal, most of our transport emissions are from road trips. 8000 miles, even in a hybrid, adds up.

I've already installed a heat pump water heater and we plan to replace the gas oven soon, since it's already wired for 220v. The dryer is also slated for replacement with a heat pump model (it needs a 220v circuit added).

The above would allow cutting off gas to the back unit. We can then start working on the front unit, which in some ways is easier as it has a crawl space for running new 220v circuits.

3    mT    all transport
1.7 mT*  electricity based on utility CO2/mwh (*100% renewable)
2    mT    gas

+ ~vegan food and shit we buy and internet servers

[NorCal]

Like NorCal, most of our transport emissions are from road trips. 8000 miles, even in a hybrid, adds up.

I've already installed a heat pump water heater and we plan to replace the gas oven soon, since it's already wired for 220v. The dryer is also slated for replacement with a heat pump model (it needs a 220v circuit added).

The above would allow cutting off gas to the back unit. We can then start working on the front unit, which in some ways is easier as it has a crawl space for running new 220v circuits.

3    mT    all transport
1.7 mT*  electricity based on utility CO2/mwh (*100% renewable)
2    mT    gas

+ ~vegan food and shit we buy and internet servers

That's pretty solid!  I hope to get to where you are in a few years.  Can I ask where you're located?

Also, tell me more about the heat-pump dryers.  I hadn't heard of them before.  I imagine they could be useful in avoiding a panel upgrade for those adding high-amperage EV chargers.

[A mom]

Thanks for doing this. I had not done a calculation in over a decade. Pretty clear that our big problem is heating our house. We don't use the cars much and have solar panels on the roof, but heating our 1950s ranch through a frigid mid-western winter uses a lot of fuel. Not sure what to do about that. We already have a lot of insulation in the attic and I hear mixed things about the benefits of insulating the walls. We still have the original windows, but they are well made and no one has ever indicated that it would be a good idea to replace them. Will think about air source heat pump, but furnace is only 8 years old. Happy to hear from anyone who has advice on any of the above.

to be more specific, gasoline is probably about 8,000 lbs CO2 per year
electricity is about 2800
and gas (mostly for home heating) is about 22,500 lbs co2 per year

[Arbitrage]

I'll wait until we've lived in our current place for a year before tallying this up.  I suspect it'll mostly be dominated by airplane flights and home gas use, as we don't drive much.

[NorCal]

Thanks for doing this. I had not done a calculation in over a decade. Pretty clear that our big problem is heating our house. We don't use the cars much and have solar panels on the roof, but heating our 1950s ranch through a frigid mid-western winter uses a lot of fuel. Not sure what to do about that. We already have a lot of insulation in the attic and I hear mixed things about the benefits of insulating the walls. We still have the original windows, but they are well made and no one has ever indicated that it would be a good idea to replace them. Will think about air source heat pump, but furnace is only 8 years old. Happy to hear from anyone who has advice on any of the above.

to be more specific, gasoline is probably about 8,000 lbs CO2 per year
electricity is about 2800
and gas (mostly for home heating) is about 22,500 lbs co2 per year

Yea, that is a lot for gas.  Similar to you, I'm finding that gas appliances are a big and tricky one.  Most contractors quote super-high for moving to a new technology.

Does your utility offer a subsidized home energy audit?  They might be able to identify whether it makes sense to add insulation to the walls.

I assume your AC unit also has a lot of life left on it?

[A mom]

Thanks for doing this. I had not done a calculation in over a decade. Pretty clear that our big problem is heating our house. We don't use the cars much and have solar panels on the roof, but heating our 1950s ranch through a frigid mid-western winter uses a lot of fuel. Not sure what to do about that. We already have a lot of insulation in the attic and I hear mixed things about the benefits of insulating the walls. We still have the original windows, but they are well made and no one has ever indicated that it would be a good idea to replace them. Will think about air source heat pump, but furnace is only 8 years old. Happy to hear from anyone who has advice on any of the above.

to be more specific, gasoline is probably about 8,000 lbs CO2 per year
electricity is about 2800
and gas (mostly for home heating) is about 22,500 lbs co2 per year

Yea, that is a lot for gas.  Similar to you, I'm finding that gas appliances are a big and tricky one.  Most contractors quote super-high for moving to a new technology.

Does your utility offer a subsidized home energy audit?  They might be able to identify whether it makes sense to add insulation to the walls.

I assume your AC unit also has a lot of life left on it?

I'm not sure. We got a free one when we moved in, but that was decades ago. Might be worth looking into another one, even if we have to pay for it. AC is 14 years old now. I have found a local HVAC specialist with experience with air source heat pumps in this climate, so will begin exploring the steps to take there even if we don't act on it for a while.   In the meantime, also exploring replacing gas stove, dryer and hot water heater with efficient electric versions since they are all nearing the end of their life expectancy, but based on summer usage, those three items add up to less than 1000 lbs CO2 per year.

[NorCal]

Thanks for doing this. I had not done a calculation in over a decade. Pretty clear that our big problem is heating our house. We don't use the cars much and have solar panels on the roof, but heating our 1950s ranch through a frigid mid-western winter uses a lot of fuel. Not sure what to do about that. We already have a lot of insulation in the attic and I hear mixed things about the benefits of insulating the walls. We still have the original windows, but they are well made and no one has ever indicated that it would be a good idea to replace them. Will think about air source heat pump, but furnace is only 8 years old. Happy to hear from anyone who has advice on any of the above.

to be more specific, gasoline is probably about 8,000 lbs CO2 per year
electricity is about 2800
and gas (mostly for home heating) is about 22,500 lbs co2 per year

Yea, that is a lot for gas.  Similar to you, I'm finding that gas appliances are a big and tricky one.  Most contractors quote super-high for moving to a new technology.

Does your utility offer a subsidized home energy audit?  They might be able to identify whether it makes sense to add insulation to the walls.

I assume your AC unit also has a lot of life left on it?

I'm not sure. We got a free one when we moved in, but that was decades ago. Might be worth looking into another one, even if we have to pay for it. AC is 14 years old now. I have found a local HVAC specialist with experience with air source heat pumps in this climate, so will begin exploring the steps to take there even if we don't act on it for a while.   In the meantime, also exploring replacing gas stove, dryer and hot water heater with efficient electric versions since they are all nearing the end of their life expectancy, but based on summer usage, those three items add up to less than 1000 lbs CO2 per year.

If you're planning to replace those with electric when they fail, I'd recommend looking at upgrading your electrical infrastructure beforehand.  Getting 240v outlets installed is a lot easier to do when you don't have a leaking hot water heater that needs to be fixed ASAP.  It will probably also cost less in total to run all of those electrical lines at once instead of piecemeal.

[A mom]

Thanks! That's the plan.

[NorCal]

So here's an update.  I had my roof inspected, and it has 3-5 years (or one big hailstorm) left before it needs to be replaced.  I'll look at solar when it's ready to be replaced.

I also just got a quote on a whole house fan, partly for energy savings, and partly to help cool our upstairs which is nearly impossible to cool with AC after the temperature has been high for a few days straight.

While my math is full of assumptions that may be wildly inaccurate, here's what I guestimate the impact will be:

Current Annual AC kwh: ~2,000
Current Annual Cost: ~$300 currently, but I expect it to be ~$375 after TOU rates are implemented later this year.

Electricity change:  I'm completely guestimating that running the whole house fan 4 hours a day on average will reduce my AC usage by 2.5 hours a day on average.  This would cut my total electricity usage by about 825kwh/year.

Bill Change:  I expect this would save me about $150/year, with a big part of the benefit being the shift of electrical load from mid day (peak pricing) to evenings (lower pricing).  Based on a $2,550 quote, this works out to a 5.7% financial return before inflation.  I consider that damn good, as our utility is raising rates at over 7%/yr these days.

Emissions Reduction:  My math shows a savings of 860lbs of emissions per year.  I think the net impact is probably a little higher, as our utility is heavy on wind power in the evenings and heavy on coal during the mid-day surge.  I can't really quantify this though.

This seems like an excellent deal as long as my assumptions are remotely close to accurate.

[A mom]

Sounds great, NorCal. We had a whole house fan when I was growing up ( no AC). That thing was amazing! We’d turn it on at bedtime and the whole house seemed to cool off in 15 minutes.

[Missy B]

I would guess we've been at pretty close to nothing since the pandemic started, since we haven't been on a plane since, but the calculators don't generally work so well for our situation - lots of stuff I don't know (like, utilities are included in my rent and I have no clue how much electricity we use, etc). But I can't imagine two childfree, carfree, zero-waste-leaning, anticonsumer vegans in a 400 square foot studio would be producing any substantial amount of pollution.

Yep, I'd say you're about as close to zero as you can get.  There's certainly a big difference in the "circle of control" of renters vs. owners when it comes to utilities.

They only would be at  nearly nothing if they were on a farm that produced all their food and cooking oil. There is petroleum built into everything, even organic vegan food, because efficient modern farming requires petroleum, and so does the transportation for the food. They're as low as they can get, which is not the same as being at zero.
Realistically, people living in a 'normal' western living situation cannot get below a footprint of 6 acres, even if they are carless vegans who don't buy new clothes, shoes, or tropical fruit, and seldom replace their computer and phone tech.

[former player]

I would guess we've been at pretty close to nothing since the pandemic started, since we haven't been on a plane since, but the calculators don't generally work so well for our situation - lots of stuff I don't know (like, utilities are included in my rent and I have no clue how much electricity we use, etc). But I can't imagine two childfree, carfree, zero-waste-leaning, anticonsumer vegans in a 400 square foot studio would be producing any substantial amount of pollution.

Yep, I'd say you're about as close to zero as you can get.  There's certainly a big difference in the "circle of control" of renters vs. owners when it comes to utilities.

They only would be at  nearly nothing if they were on a farm that produced all their food and cooking oil. There is petroleum built into everything, even organic vegan food, because efficient modern farming requires petroleum, and so does the transportation for the food. They're as low as they can get, which is not the same as being at zero.
Realistically, people living in a 'normal' western living situation cannot get below a footprint of 6 acres, even if they are carless vegans who don't buy new clothes, shoes, or tropical fruit, and seldom replace their computer and phone tech.

It's also necessary to include the carbon emissions per capita of central and local government acting on behalf of each individual person.  That alone is enough to make the lifestyle of anyone in a G7 country unsustainable.

[NorCal]

I would guess we've been at pretty close to nothing since the pandemic started, since we haven't been on a plane since, but the calculators don't generally work so well for our situation - lots of stuff I don't know (like, utilities are included in my rent and I have no clue how much electricity we use, etc). But I can't imagine two childfree, carfree, zero-waste-leaning, anticonsumer vegans in a 400 square foot studio would be producing any substantial amount of pollution.

Yep, I'd say you're about as close to zero as you can get.  There's certainly a big difference in the "circle of control" of renters vs. owners when it comes to utilities.

They only would be at  nearly nothing if they were on a farm that produced all their food and cooking oil. There is petroleum built into everything, even organic vegan food, because efficient modern farming requires petroleum, and so does the transportation for the food. They're as low as they can get, which is not the same as being at zero.
Realistically, people living in a 'normal' western living situation cannot get below a footprint of 6 acres, even if they are carless vegans who don't buy new clothes, shoes, or tropical fruit, and seldom replace their computer and phone tech.

It's also necessary to include the carbon emissions per capita of central and local government acting on behalf of each individual person.  That alone is enough to make the lifestyle of anyone in a G7 country unsustainable.

I think it's important to view these things in the context of "circle of control" (https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/10/07/how-big-is-your-circle-of-control/).  While I can't control what goes into the asphalt in my city's roads, or even the building materials used to make my house, I can absolutely control how my house is powered and how efficient I can make it.  I can also control how I transport myself and what fuels I use to do so.

I can make a huge difference in my impact by reducing the things I can control.  I don't see the point of endlessly evaluating things that I have zero ability to change or influence.

[former player]

I would guess we've been at pretty close to nothing since the pandemic started, since we haven't been on a plane since, but the calculators don't generally work so well for our situation - lots of stuff I don't know (like, utilities are included in my rent and I have no clue how much electricity we use, etc). But I can't imagine two childfree, carfree, zero-waste-leaning, anticonsumer vegans in a 400 square foot studio would be producing any substantial amount of pollution.

Yep, I'd say you're about as close to zero as you can get.  There's certainly a big difference in the "circle of control" of renters vs. owners when it comes to utilities.

They only would be at  nearly nothing if they were on a farm that produced all their food and cooking oil. There is petroleum built into everything, even organic vegan food, because efficient modern farming requires petroleum, and so does the transportation for the food. They're as low as they can get, which is not the same as being at zero.
Realistically, people living in a 'normal' western living situation cannot get below a footprint of 6 acres, even if they are carless vegans who don't buy new clothes, shoes, or tropical fruit, and seldom replace their computer and phone tech.

It's also necessary to include the carbon emissions per capita of central and local government acting on behalf of each individual person.  That alone is enough to make the lifestyle of anyone in a G7 country unsustainable.

I think it's important to view these things in the context of "circle of control" (https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/10/07/how-big-is-your-circle-of-control/).  While I can't control what goes into the asphalt in my city's roads, or even the building materials used to make my house, I can absolutely control how my house is powered and how efficient I can make it.  I can also control how I transport myself and what fuels I use to do so.

I can make a huge difference in my impact by reducing the things I can control.  I don't see the point of endlessly evaluating things that I have zero ability to change or influence.

You live in a democracy not a dictatorship.   You can at least use your vote in favour of reductions in carbon emissions, and if you cared enough you could campaign for change and work with local voluntary organisations as well.   A head in the sand approach will not stop, or limit, the coming climate disaster.

[NorCal]

I would guess we've been at pretty close to nothing since the pandemic started, since we haven't been on a plane since, but the calculators don't generally work so well for our situation - lots of stuff I don't know (like, utilities are included in my rent and I have no clue how much electricity we use, etc). But I can't imagine two childfree, carfree, zero-waste-leaning, anticonsumer vegans in a 400 square foot studio would be producing any substantial amount of pollution.

Yep, I'd say you're about as close to zero as you can get.  There's certainly a big difference in the "circle of control" of renters vs. owners when it comes to utilities.

They only would be at  nearly nothing if they were on a farm that produced all their food and cooking oil. There is petroleum built into everything, even organic vegan food, because efficient modern farming requires petroleum, and so does the transportation for the food. They're as low as they can get, which is not the same as being at zero.
Realistically, people living in a 'normal' western living situation cannot get below a footprint of 6 acres, even if they are carless vegans who don't buy new clothes, shoes, or tropical fruit, and seldom replace their computer and phone tech.

It's also necessary to include the carbon emissions per capita of central and local government acting on behalf of each individual person.  That alone is enough to make the lifestyle of anyone in a G7 country unsustainable.

I think it's important to view these things in the context of "circle of control" (https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/10/07/how-big-is-your-circle-of-control/).  While I can't control what goes into the asphalt in my city's roads, or even the building materials used to make my house, I can absolutely control how my house is powered and how efficient I can make it.  I can also control how I transport myself and what fuels I use to do so.

I can make a huge difference in my impact by reducing the things I can control.  I don't see the point of endlessly evaluating things that I have zero ability to change or influence.

You live in a democracy not a dictatorship.   You can at least use your vote in favour of reductions in carbon emissions, and if you cared enough you could campaign for change and work with local voluntary organisations as well.   A head in the sand approach will not stop, or limit, the coming climate disaster.

No disagreement there.  I have the parts I can control (my own footprint), and the parts I can influence.  This includes my vote (which practically influences very little), and my activities mentoring several climate-focused startups. 

But that doesn't mean there's any value in stressing about the carbon footprint of the fertilizer used to grow my lettuce.  While there is a real footprint to that, it is something that I can even measure or do anything about.