carbon feet

A ‘carbon footprint’ measures the total greenhouse gas emissions caused directly and indirectly by a person, organisation, event or product.
The footprint considers all six of the Kyoto Protocol greenhouse gases: Carbon dioxide (CO2), Methane (CH4), Nitrous oxide (N2O), Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), Perfluorocarbons (PFCs) and Sulphur hexafluoride (SF6).
A carbon footprint is measured in tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2e). The carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) allows the different greenhouse gases to be compared on a like-for-like basis relative to one unit of CO2. CO2e is calculated by multiplying the emissions of each of the six greenhouse gases by its 100 year global warming potential (GWP).
Two types of carbon footprinting
The main types of carbon footprint are:
Organisational
Emissions from all the activities across the organisation, including buildings’ energy use, industrial processes and company vehicles.
Product Emissions over the whole life of a product or service, from the extraction of raw materials and manufacturing right through to its use and final reuse, recycling or disposal. Rapid increases in human-induced carbon emissions are causing the oceans to suffer in profound ways, and the problem is getting worse.
In a new review published in the journal Current Biology, Andrew Brierley of St. Andrews University in Scotland and Michael Kingsford of Australia's Cook University write that if warming continues at these levels — not seen in 56 million years — the planet will experience a 4.6-foot rise in sea levels by 2100 and a near-total disappearance of the ice-covered polar seas by 2020.

http://www.carbontrust.co.uk/cut-carbon-reduce-costs/calculate/carbon-footprinting/Pages/carbon-footprinting.aspx

Surface waters of the seas naturally absorb CO2 that accumulates in the atmosphere above them. The problem is that as more CO2 gets concentrated, the more acidic the oceans become. And ocean acidification is now up 30 percent since the industrialized revolution. As the Current Biology study notes:
Over the past 200 years, the oceans have absorbed approximately half of the anthropogenically-generated CO2 and at present a further approximately 1 million tonnes of CO2 diffuse in to the world ocean per hour.

Nature's forests, soils and wetlands are so effective at removing toxins, heavy metals, and organic matter from water that engineers are now building "living machines" – constructed wetlands to treat wastewater. Sand and gravel filter particulates from water, while microbes and bacteria feed on organic matter. Mussels and oysters are being cultivated by NASA as a natural solution for treating wastewater during long-range space missions.
Fresh water is our most precious resource, and it is nature's clouds, snowbanks and watersheds that cleanse, store and transport that water for us.


The earliest civilizations of Egypt, Mesopotamia, China and India sprouted on the fertile flood plains of the world's great rivers. These floodplains are nature’s safety valves, allowing the river’s natural cycles to overflow its banks and deposit fresh soil on the land. But as urban development and farmland have encroached on the rivers, we have drained the wetlands, and put ourselves in harm's way. In 1993, the flooding Mississippi River swept through tens of thousands of homes in nine states, killing 50 people and damaging millions of acres of farmland worth $12 billion dollars.
http://solveclimate.com/blog/20090422/top-10-reasons-mother-nature-too-big-fail

http://solveclimate.com/blog/20090804/bad-and-getting-worse-surge-co2-emissions-damaging-world-s-oceans


conflict: the holocene enabled the development of civilisation and if the icecaps melt-wont this decrease the ocean's acidity? -tam (using human past, thames and hudson, and other forgotten refs)