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Article: What the heck is a "carbon footprint," anyway?(GOING GREEN)
- Article from:
- Marie Claire
- Article date:
- September 1, 2007
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2007 Hearst Communications, reprinted with permission of Hearst. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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What the term means
It's a measure of the total amount of harmful greenhouse-gas emissions that people produce, either directly or indirectly. These gases warm the atmosphere by absorbing heat that's radiated by the earth, then releasing only a portion of that heat into space. The most dangerous, long-lasting greenhouse gases produced by humans are carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and chlorofluorocarbons (aerosols containing this were banned in the U.S. nearly 30 years ago). Carbon dioxide, or C[O.sub.2], is the most pervasive of the evil gases (a molecule stays airborne for more than a century), and since it's tough to separate and quantify each distinct ...