The Ecological Footprint measures the amount of biologically productive land and sea area an individual, a region, all of humanity, or a human activity requires to produce the resources it consumes and absorb the waste it generates, and compares this measurement to how much land and sea area is available.

Biologically productive land and sea includes area that 1) supports human demand for food, fiber, timber, energy and space for infrastructure and 2) absorbs the waste products from the human economy. Biologically productive areas include cropland, forest and fishing grounds, and do not include deserts, glaciers and the open ocean.

Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) were developed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as a method to help subsidize sustainable clean energy production facilities (wind, solar, biogas, biomass, geothermal, etc.) by allowing these facilities to separately sell the environmental benefits of each megawatt of energy produced in the form of a Renewable Energy Certificate.

By purchasing an REC you claim the environmental benefits of the Megawatt of “clean green sustainable energy” sold into the national grid, allowing you to offset your carbon footprint with the clean energy attributes. The revenue from your purchase of an REC helps to fund the expansion of clean energy facilities as well as the advanced technological research and development of alternative sustainable power sources.

Global greenhouse gas emissions rose 70 per cent between 1970 and 2004 and would rise another 25 to 90 per cent above 2000 levels by 2030 without new restraints.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2007 assessment report said world temperatures are likely to rise between 1.1 to 6.4 degrees Celsius by 2100, triggering more frequent floods, droughts, melting of icecaps and threatening species extinction.

Carbon emissions from the next five years of burning rainforests will be greater than that for the entire history of aviation up to 2025, according to the Global Canopy Programme.

An estimated 30 per cent of the world’s total greenhouse emissions in 1997 came from wildfires in Borneo, which destroyed one million hectares of forests.

Up to 25 per cent of all human-related greenhouse gas emissions result from release of carbon through forest losses, mainly in developing countries.

Within that 25 per cent, the clearing of Indonesia's peat swamps is estimated to cause two billion tonnes of carbon emissions a year - about 8 per cent of total global emissions alone.

Worldwide carbon dioxide emissions in 2005 are estimated to be slightly more than 24 billion tonnes.

Every litre of gasoline or petrol used in motor vehicles produces 2.4 kilograms of carbon dioxide emissions. For diesel fuel, every litre produces 2.7 kilograms carbon dioxide.

The average US citizen emits as much carbon dioxide in one day as someone in China does in more than a week, or someone in Tanzania, one of the world's poorest countries, emits in seven months.

Ten countries account for two-thirds of global forest area, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization: Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, the Democratic Republic of Congo, India, Indonesia, Peru, Russia and the United States.