You are probably wondering what the heck CRAG Day means. Today is the end of the first year for our Carbon Reduction Action Group and the beginning of the next year. Our group spent the past year tracking personal use of the following resources and will calculate the emissions after all is said and done:
- gasoline/diesel for personal use of vehicles
- use of home heating and cooking fuels
- electricity use
- plane trips
How does this all work? When you burn fossil fuels, they emit greenhouse gases that cause global warming. These gases are measured in carbon dioxide equivalents. A unit of each type of fuel will emit a certain mass of carbon dioxide equivalent. For example, a gallon of gasoline emits 19.56 pounds CO2e when combusted in an automobile. We only count things that are easily measured. For example, even though food production and transport create emissions, we don't track those because we don't have good numbers for them.
Maryland's emissions goal for this past CRAG year was 24,089 lbs/year, 10% below the US average of 26,766 lbs/yr for energy use. We predict that every person in our group, including kids, will save an average of $300 on energy bills from this past year and 2,677 pounds of greenhouse gases just by reducing energy use. Over the next month or so, we'll get our final bills in and will be able to calculate how we did. Wish us luck!
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