Activities

“The concentration of GHG in the atmosphere has grown mainly as a result of human activity. GHG trap heat that would otherwise escape into space and they radiate it back towards the earth’s surface: a phenomenon known as the ‘greenhouse effect’. The growth of GHG emissions may be linked to rising temperatures…”. (see additional information field)

Additional information

Agriculture, land use change and forestry generate about 7% of UK GHG. (The emissions come from energy and fuel use, livestock, cultivation and land-use change and the application of nitrogen fertilisers and lime.) On the other hand agriculture/forestry can remove CO2 by storing it in soil and trees: Understanding the carbon balance marks an important first step towards the reduction of GHG emissions. The CALM Calculator (Carbon Accounting for Land Managers) which was developed by the CLA (Country Land & Business Association) is a free web-based calculator that provides farmers with data on the scale and source of their farms´ emissions and by this provides them with important information in order to reduce and offset those emissions. CALM focuses on the farm activities, not on whole life-cycles – meaning that the activities of farm suppliers and purchasers are not included in the calculation.

CALM allows farmers to save their data so that progress can be tracked and changes from year to year can be recalculated. The online site is secure and data is only accesible to the user. The imput into the CALM calculator should be intuitve, but there is a help site avaliable

Additional references: http://www.calm.cla.org.uk/ http://www.cla.org.uk/rural-policy-advice/environmental-management/natu…