Easy-to-use tools can help you calculate your environmental footprint, assess your carbon shadow, and estimate the potential energy, economic, and other benefits associated with going green. Here are some useful, interesting, and amusing resources:
- Vehicle Buying Tools: Compare and contrast new and used vehicles based on class, miles per gallon, greenhouse gas emissions, fuel sources, air pollution ratings, and safety information. (Source: U.S. government agencies)
- Vehicle Fuel Cost Calculator: Determine how much you can save on fuel costs by choosing a more efficient vehicle. (Source: U.S. government agencies)
- Hybrid Center: Calculate purchase costs, miles per gallon, barrels of oil consumed, greenhouse gas emissions, and economic and environmental benefits associated with purchasing a hybrid gas-electric vehicle. (Source: Union of Concerned Scientists)
- Home Energy Yardstick: Armed with recent energy bills and other basic information, you can compare your home’s energy use to similar homes across the country and get recommendations for energy-saving actions. (Source: EnergyStar)
- Home Energy Saver: Find the best way to save energy in your home based on its size and other characteristics. (Source: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory)
- Greener Choices Calculators: Tools for sizing heating/cooling systems, appliances, and generators; for comparing vehicles; and for determining carbon footprints (Source: Consumer Reports)
- Compact Green Calculator: Scroll down the page to find this calculator for Cape & Vineyard consumers, which will help you determine how little extra you will pay, in dollars and cents, and how much more you will save, in terms of reduced emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2). (Source: Cape Light Compact)
- Power Profiler: The Bush Administration might not be willing to connect the dots, but the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) thinks you need to know where your electricity comes from, how dirty it is in terms of pollutant and greenhouse gas emissions, and what you can do about it. (Source: EPA)
- Greenhouse Gas Equivalency Calculator: The U.S. Climate Technology Cooperation Gateway, developed by EPA and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), lets you convert your carbon footprint, in terms of tons of CO2 emitted, into everyday equivalents - such as number of vehicles, amount of fuel, acreage of forest, tons of waste, etc. (Source: EPA/USAID)
- SafeClimate Carbon Footprint: Estimate your greenhouse gas emissions based on fuel consumption at home, miles driven, and air travel. (Source: World Resource Institute)
- Ecological Footprint: Determine how much acreage is required to support your lifestyle (encompassing habits relating to food, energy, waste, etc.), relative to the U.S. average and to the finite amount of biologically productive land actually available on this Earth. (Source: Earth Day Network/Redefining Progress)
- Coal Power vs. Wind Power: Flick the switch from one source to another and compare their environmental impacts. (Source: Union of Concerned Scientists)
