Explanation About Personal Carbon Footprint, Its Causes, and Effects in the Environment

1. Personal Carbon Footprint
Your carbon footprint is the sum of all emissions of CO2 (carbon
dioxide), which were induced by your activities in a given time
frame. Usually a carbon footprint is calculated for the time period
of a year.
The total amount of greenhouse gases produced to directly and
indirectly support human activities, usually expressed in equivalent
tons of carbon dioxide (CO2 = the chemical symbol for carbon
dioxide)
CO2 is inevitably created by burning fossil fuels like oil, natural
gas, diesel, petrol, ethanol. Pollution occurs in different forms; air,
water, soil, radioactive, noise, heat/ thermal

2. Causes
Pollution occurs in different forms:
Air: cooking, driving and other industrial activities
Water: industrial wastes dumped into the rivers, oil spills in the oceans
Soil: Use of insecticides and pesticides
Radioactive: It can occur due to nuclear plant malfunctions, improper
nuclear waste disposal, accidents, etc.
Noise: machines in industries, loud music
Heat/ thermal:
Light: excess illumination of an area

3. Everyday Activities Causing
Air Pollution
• The burning of Wood
• The gas kitchen stoves
• The use of Packaged Spray Products
• Smoking
• Operate your computer for 32 hours
• Production and Use of 5 plastic bags
• Production and use of 2 plastic bottles
• Travel by public transportation (train or bus) a distance
of 10 to 12 km
• Drive your car a distance of 6 km

4. The Effects of our Personal Carbon Foot print:
Global Warming
The global warming does indeed exist and it was mainly
caused by humankind who is even still accelerating it
• Rise of the average temperature leading to melting of
glaciers and of the polar ice, among other things.
• Increase of the sea level as well as generally more of
extreme weather events and nature disasters like droughts,
floods, tornadoes, etc.
• CO2 (Carbon dioxide) emissions belong to the most
important causes of global warming. Only a drastic
reduction of the waste gas emissions in the very near
future can stop this trend.

5. Industrial and Vehicular Emissions

6. The Pollution in Cuenca
In Cuenca there is an approximate of 475 buses
The Air Quality Monitoring Network of the company,
Cuenca Aire said that 73% of the air pollution in
Cuenca is attributed to the vehicle fleet.

7. The Pollution in Cuenca

8. According to technician of the Emov, in a study
carried out in 2013, it was evident that all the
parameters monitored were within the permitted
regulations, and so fuel is not the main factor for
pollution, but the biggest problem is the lack of
maintenance of the vehicles. There are extreme cases
in which cars require an engine repair and simple
cases such as changing filters, but sometimes people
are negligent.

9. Euro 3 vs Euro 5
• The stages are usually called Euro 1, Euro 2, Euro 3, Euro 4 and Euro 5
for light vehicles. The corresponding series of regulations for heavy
vehicles use Roman numerals instead of Arabic numerals (Euro I, Euro
II, etc.)

10. Thank you!