If you're concerned about climate change, and want to reduce carbon emissions, you might be surprised how easy it is to figure out how much carbon dioxide is produced by, say, driving to work. Sure, there are a lot of carbon calculators out there where you can plug in all the numbers on how much you drive, and how much electricity you use. But it's also surprisingly easy to estimate yourself.

Here’s how you can do it. If you go to the EPA carbon calculator it gives you recognizable units, like gallons and pounds. (And slightly more confusing units like carbon dioxide equivalent.  Essentially, they’re adding the other greenhouse gases into the number for carbon dioxide. But there’s more about that on the calculator page.)

It’s very simple to use, so here are results I got from spending a few minutes with the EPA calculator and playing with the numbers.

* Every gallon of gas burned produces about 22 pounds of carbon dioxide equivalent. (So for simplicity, let's round down to 20.)
* Every therm of natural gas burned produces about 11 pounds. (I think it’s fair to round down to 10.)
* Every kilowatt hour (kWh) of electricity produces about 1.7 pounds.
(If rounding up to 2 seems too painful, consider where your electricity comes from. If it comes from coal, yep, round up to 2. For natural gas, you can figure 1 pound. There are some statistics that help justify those numbers here.)

So when you fill up your gas tank, you have a number in gallons. Take it times 20 and you're awfully close to knowing how much carbon dioxide burning that tank of gas will produce. Same thing goes for your electric bill. Take a look at the number of kilowatt hours. Double it (in most cases) and you’re looking at pounds of greenhouse gas emissions.

Want to think more about pounds of carbon emissions and how to lose them? Here are a few related articles:

Eight Projects for Instant Energy Savings, Mother Earth News 

On Carbon Calculators, Grist 

What Makes a Pound of Carbon Dioxide, The Green Guide

What is the plural of Prius? Priuses? Prii? Prix? Priora. Just Prius? Whatever’s correct, there certainly are lots of the trendsetting hybrid car out there. More than 1 million, in fact. 

As of April 2008, worldwide sales of the Prius reached 1,028,000 units. The Prius is sold in more than 40 countries and regions, but the bulk of sales come from North America and Japan. 

According to Toyota, all those Prius hybrids have contributed 4.5 million tons less carbon dioxide pollution (the leading cause of global warming) than what would have come from similarly sized gas-only cars purchased instead of the Prius. 

And, in case you’re wondering, the official word from Toyota is that Prius works for the singular and plural forms.

Daniel Sheridan, 23, found a way to turn children’s energy into electrical power with just a teeter or totter of a board.  The student of Consumer Product Design at Coventry University in the UK invented a see-saw that generates electricity. 

The idea came to Sheridan while volunteering in Kenya at a school. Riding the see-saw should generate enough electricity to light a classroom for an evening after only five to 10 minutes of use.  While played on, it converts the action of the kids into electrical energy and is then transferred, using an underground cable, to a nearby classroom.

Sheridan recently won about $2,000 for the invention at the Coventry University’s Enterprise Festival, and he plans to use the money to start constructing the design with local supplies in Uganda.  Once the product is introduced to the community, they will have the opportunity to help build and install it.  Sheridan does not intend to make a profit from the product; instead, he just wants to help improve the atmosphere for those working or studying at the school where it will be installed.

Sheridan’s design is not the first to put playground equipment to practical use.  The Gaviotas community invented a see-saw as well that provides enough energy to operate a water pump and wind-mill for their eco-village in Colombia.  Another design is the PlayPump water system, which was made to work as a water pump and a merry-go-round for children to use.

More commercial, but just as environmentally friendly, Sony has recently made five different kinetic devices with different types of power sources.  These five devices, including a video camera, digital camera, photo and video viewer, stereo headphones and solar battery can all be powered by cranking, pulling or spinning them. Or when a child is stuck in a place (like an airplane or train) where they cannot move the product, they can use the solar battery to power it.  

By using children to create energy, the environment can look forward to a less damaging way to light up a school, operate a water pump or power a digital camera. And maybe kids can look forward to more recess.

 A city with no carbon emissions? It sounds impossible, especially in the oil-rich Middle East, but a $22 billion, zero-emissions city began construction earlier this month near Abu Dhabi in the Persian Gulf.

The government-funded venture, called the Masdar Initiative, located in the United Arab Emirates off the coast of the Persian Gulf, will be used as a large-scale test for future renewable energy plans. According to an article published by Technology Review, the Masdar Initiative will house 50,000 people and 1,500 businesses, and all energy will come from renewable resources.

While the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is one of the world’s largest producers of oil, a culprit of greenhouse gas emissions, the country’s leaders acknowledge that oil is becoming a limited resource for the world’s growing energy demands. According to an article on The Hindustan Times, the Masdar Initiative is the first step in a plan to make the UAE a country that relies less on oil. Masdar’s CEO, Sultan al Jaber, says he hopes the project will put the UAE as a frontrunner for leading the world in renewable energy practices.   

Building a city from scratch gives builders an advantage. Since most energy-saving techniques are usually add-ons to existing facilities, the Masdar Initiative is able to incorporate energy-saving features into the actual city structures. Sensors will be installed in all buildings and houses to monitor energy use, and residents will be constantly notified of their energy consumption to avoid waste and high costs. Thin solar panels will be installed on all rooftops and most streets and areas between buildings are covered to utilize the sun’s rays for energy. Public transportation will be taken to another level thanks to battery-powered driverless vehicles that pick-up and drop off their passengers when they type in their destination. Surrounding land will contain wind and photovoltaic farms, research fields and plantations, all to ensure self-sustainability.

If the Masdar Initiative is successful, its founders are hopeful that other countries and cities around the world will follow suit. This could be the first of many steps in the process of moving our planet toward less dependency on fossil fuels and more focus on renewable energy.

Check out Technology Review’s article to see photos of the driverless transports and solar panels that will be included in the Masdar Initiative.

With the ongoing record surge in the price of oil against declining supplies, there’s renewed clamor from oil companies and some politicians for drilling in protected areas, such as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and offshore locations along the East and West Coasts. 

But don’t shed a tear for Big Oil as it begs for more drilling. According to a report from CNNMoney.com, oil companies aren’t producing oil on 70 million of the 90 million offshore acres for which they already have drilling leases. The majority of these permits are for locations in the Gulf of Mexico. 

Oil companies need to “finish what’s on their plate before they go back in line,” says Oppenheimer analyst Fadel Gheit in the CNN article. 

For their part, the oil companies say it takes years of research and exploration before drilling can begin in a specific area. 

This is basically true, and few think Big Oil is hoarding oil (why would they given record prices?). But how long have those leases gone unused? It does seem likely that the oil industry is holding out hope for drilling in federal lands, such as the Arctic Refuge, which would be much less expensive to tap than locations deep within the ocean. 

About 8 million barrels of oil are produced every day in the United States (versus 21 million consumed). A report from the Energy Information Administration, Analysis of Crude Oil Production in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, projects that oil production from the Arctic Refuge could be between 1.9 and 4.3 billion barrels over the course of 12 years, with the most likely scenario being 2.6 billion. 

Click here to read the CNN Money article.