Terms that often often thrown about the press are "carbon footprint",  "carbon neutral" and "carbon offset".  It's big news and big business.

But what exactly are they?

Carbon Footprint
Our carbon footprint is a measure of the impact that our daily life activities have on the environment, particularly on climate change.  It measures the estimated amount of greenhouse gases we produce through burning fossil fuels for heat, electricity and transport and also that of the services we use.

Carbon Neutral
Carbon Neutral refers to aiming to achieve a zero carbon footprint by offsetting the carbon dioxide we produce with processes that consume carbon.

Carbon Offsets 
Simply put, you pay money to a company running a carbon offset scheme and it buys or subsidises energy efficient technologies (such as solar panels, low energy bulbs, wind power etc) to compensate for your specific activities.  Most offsets are bought by companies and governments who are legally bound to comply with caps put on their carbon emissions.
There are many companies selling/trading carbon offsets, although this method does not stop the carbon issue at source.

None of us will save the world overnight, but small changes in our lifestyle can add up.  Offsetting our carbon emissions does not reduce the problem at source but can help replace those emissions we can not change immediately.

To manage our Carbon Footprint, we need to first measure it.  There are many carbon footprint calculators available on the internet.  They take into account your house, appliances, travel, and entertainment and should be used as a guide as to where you can make improvements to your lifestyle and help the environment.

The WWF footprint calculator kindly informed me I am using 2.6 planets of carbon.  I was rather surprised as I have no car, I'm veggie, I recycle and my home is insulated and has low energy bulbs.  The calculator ends with giving some tips and an invitation to sig up and take their challenge to reduce your carbon footprint with various lifestyle changes.

So, I tried CarbonFootprint.com.  This one is a bit more complicated, and probably more in-depth as it asks for date ranges and how much you spend on fuel etc.  My result?  My footprint is 4.81 tonnes per year. The average footprint for people in United Kingdom is 9.80 tonnes.  Of course there was a link to their online store to ease my conscience by buying carbon offset products.

Directgov has a very swish looking flash calculator, which luckily has a HTML version as my patience in waiting for things to load is minimal.  My Directgov carbon footprint is 3.9 tonnes per year, enough to fill 357,930 footballs with carbon dioxide which will cover 1.62 football pitches! (a nice piece of useless info there) There is a link at the end to provide an action plan for reducing your carbon foot print, unfortunately mine kept timing out and pointing nowhere.

The calculators should be used as a guide only and help show you where changes can be made to help reduce greenhouse gases and your carbon footprint.