I was very surprised to see how high my carbon footprint was, especially from the amount of traveling I did. I think, in my general area the carbon footprint was so high because most of the people in my neighborhood leave their lights on in their house before they leave for the day, which usually means they'll be gone for several hours of the day. I also do this sometimes but I should stop to reduce my carbon footprint, I think other people can also stop doing things like leaving the water running and using their cars to travel places that are close to reduce fossil fuel emissions.

Many of us are probably used to eating meat, dairy, eggs and other animal products quite frequently, if not every day. What a lot of us don't know (or choose to ignore) is the horrors that go on inside the meat/animal product industry. The animals in them are subjected to short, tortuous lives, with many living cramped together and in inhumane conditions. In addition to all of that, it is horrible to the environment, with factory farming being one of the leading cause of greenhouse gases worldwide.Eating less meat could help to reduce our carbon emissions as a group effort, and would help the environment and the animals as well.

As a student who has lots of activities to do in and outside of school, I can’t always use public transportation. This is one of my personal reasons for my high carbon footprint, as I’m sure it is for many other students. A way for our cities to combat this is by making it more accessible. Instead of me having to walk a mile to the correct bus stop and then walking two more to get to where I need to be, it is majorly inconvenient. Also, when I have used public transportation to get to where I need to go, I am often late. If cities can implement a way to make more specific public transport, that would help this issue. I understand that this wouldn't be easy and is risky if people don’t end up using it, but with a good amount of promotion, it can work.

The fact that the carbon footprint survey asked us where we live got me thinking. Where should our actions and next steps be focused? Nobody can really help where they live, and I doubt that anyone is going to uproot their lives just to reduce their carbon footprint. And while humans leave a very large carbon footprint, I think reduction efforts should be focused in places that can implement those changes. It wouldn't make sense for us to focus our efforts in a rural countryside where everyone already lives frugally, but it also wouldn't make sense to pour all of the effort into a place like New York City that is already super industrialized. If we did that, we would be putting in a lot of effort without a lot of reward. Instead, if we focus on more suburban neighborhoods and towns, that amount of effort could really change things. I learned through my survey that most of my carbon footprint comes from transportation. I can't exactly help transportation because I can't drive and live in a big city, but for people who CAN help it, they should, not by completely cutting all individual transportation, but by giving a friend a ride to work, or taking the subway on Fridays. Stop focusing on the big picture. If you do that, you'll get tunnel vision. Focus on the little ways you can help and do everything you can. Not doing so is the same philosophy as saying "Oh, darn, I only have 45 minutes to work out today instead of an hour. I guess I'm better off just not working out at all." It's always better to do something, even if it's half-assed, because half-assing something is still doing it. So, focus on the little ways to reduce carbon footprint, and know that every little thing done has the potential to make a big difference.

After I completed the I2Sea carbon footprint calculator, I became more aware of the things I mindlessly do daily that really impact it. For the most part my carbon footprint was lower than the average in my area, but my transportation levels were a prominent outlier. I didn't expect them to be that high, but it makes sense since I recently took a big trip to Japan and Korea over my spring break that included a 11 hour plane ride one way. If it not were for that trip, I think the levels would have been lower. My home, food and purchase levels were drastically lower than the average. However, my purchases were ten times lower than the average calculations. So I think this calculator is pretty accurate since it separates the carbon footprint levels into sections or certain parts in our lives, but at the same time one thing like my trip can kinda throw it all off.

I believe that traveling is a great way to make connections and experience cultures all over the world. However, traveling is often bad for the environment, especially when done a lot. I propose that people should try to make the switch to electric vehicles instead of gasoline vehicles and they should try to be mindful of the environment when traveling.

Individuals should not be able to own private planes because carbon emissions from that are the highest and I don't want to discourage people from traveling because it is a good thing for culture but people could watch what they do in other countries and how they treat the environment

To me these two words are often merged into one word which is not right. Sometimes wants are even mistaken as needs. As a conservative person, it confuses me when people seem to buy things they want when it is really a waste of money. This belief that wants are a need are even fueling causes of climate change like fast fashion where people want to and buy the cheaply made products. If these clothes were really a need then we would go to places like thrift stores more often because they would sell the clothes we needed for much cheaper.

Rampant consumerism is a very large issue in the world today. Many people feel like they always need the newest and trendiest thing, but having those things does more harm than good. What we often don’t realize is that buying new products like clothes, makeup, and other commodities hurts our environment. Due to things like international shipping, the materials used to create the products, and how they were created, harmful gas emissions are driven up. Also, oftentimes these products are thrown away when the person feels like they don’t need them anymore, and because people don’t always dispose of their waste properly, thousands of tons of discarded products end up in landfills, creating a cycle of environmental harm that cannot be undone, unless people make large-scale changes to their consumer habits. These changes could be thrifting clothes more instead of shopping fast fashion, or choosing to shop from more eco-friendly brands.

Instead of transportation we need to create communites that are more encourging to walking and biking. Though electric cars can solve part of the problem the main problem is how our communites are built to revolve around cars. My highest contributer to my carbon footprint was the transportation section this is since everyone relys on cars so much since not all communies have stores close to their communtiy so they need cars to drive to get basic nesesistys. A community centerd towards walking and biking would have all the nesary stores and food very close to or within the town. This would encourage peopel to walk since it would not be an imense amount of effort. As well as helping our planet biking and walking helps people loose weight inturn leading to a more healthy society.

Many people don’t realize that throwing away food also means wasting all the energy it took to grow, ship, and store it. When food ends up in landfills, it rots and releases methane—a gas that’s way worse for the environment than carbon dioxide. In the Article" Food Waste and Climate Footprint," I learned that if food waste were a country, it would be the third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases after the U.S. and China. I started focusing on this in my everyday life, while doing this I learned that “best by” dates aren’t always accurate, so I don’t throw stuff out just because the label says so. Cutting food waste isn't a hard problem to fix it just means we have to be more aware.

Did  you know 28% of the U.S co2 emmisons come from transportation. Alot of people abuse their ablity to drive somewhere because it's more convient, and can get us from place to place faster, but as we know the earth is dying due to us. We learned in an edpuzzle in class that if we put the earth existents in a 24hour spectrum we've only been on the  earth for 4 seconds, and we've already caused thousands of animal to go exist, and ecosystems to be destroyed. The Industrial Revolution, became the power house to rise in greenhouse emmsions. and ever since the average global amount of co2 has increased drastically in the past 40 years. so instead getting car to go to the park, maybe you should run or ride bike, to save the eath step by step.

After finishing the carbon footprint survey, I had noticed that for food, I produced twice the normal amount of carbon. This was likely the case probably due to the fact that my diet was based around meat and lacked a healthy amount of vegetables. However, if you lack a healthy amount of meat, our energy will severely decrease causing us to feel tired and nauseous. Realizing that this is a problem, I wonder what would be a better alternative than just going vegetarian? After some time I had learned that tofu and beans produces less carbon then meat and have about the same amount of protein as meat. If enough people reduce their diet to beans and and tofu, the earths carbon can drastically go down by 25%. Although, are diets do not need to be restricted to only tofu and beans, we can have meat on certain occasions, but we should not have it every day if we want to reduce our carbon footprint.

With fast fashion brands becoming more apparent in the last decade, carbon emissions from clothing have significantly increased. Not only have more clothes been thrown in the landfill, but the higher demand for clothing to fit a specific trend has led to much higher carbon emissions. The increase in social media has promoted trends and fast fashion more than ever. Also, the process of making clothes and shipping them all around the world affects fashion companies' carbon footprints. According to the UN Environment Programme in a 2019 report, "the fashion industry is responsible for about 10% of global carbon emissions." This statistic highlights how the fashion industry is becoming a problem and has a very strong impact on the world's carbon footprint. Fast Fashion has added to the problem of the world's carbon footprint.

While doing my calculations, I noticed that a carnivore diet with four people produces a lot of CO2.

I agree that carnivore diets produces greater amounts of CO2 than a vegetarian or vegan diet. This is due to many things but one of the greatest contributors is the food needed to feed the animals that could have been used to just feed humans. Personally when driving past cow farms it highlights all of the resources needed to create meat.

Throughout this questionnaire, I have answered questions about what my actions do to the environment. I thought that my biggest carbon emission would be due to transport, but it was not. The food emission was the biggest contribution, with the amount of 3,465 kgs. This makes me think about how much I eat, but also what I do with my food afterward. I saw that someone also had the same outcome. My one question is, if I need food as a student athlete, what can I do to lower my food emissions?

Looking deeper into the cause of my carbon footprint revealed how much the location of one’s community can affect their carbon usage. For example, living in the U.S. means long distance travel is extremely common as things are so far apart from one another. Flying for week long trips or even for single day trips happens with regularity all throughout the U.S., immensely increasing the country’s global footprint. Unlike some other nations, we don’t have a long distance travel alternative like a train, so people resort to flying, one of the highest producers of carbon in all technology. On a local level, simple things like being walking distance from your school can have a huge impact on your carbon footprint. Driving for your daily commute adds up, eventually making a big impact on carbon emissions into the atmosphere, so being smart with short distance transportation such as walking or biking, makes a big difference in the long run.

There are  profound ways in which students can adopt the following to help to reduce their carbon footprint. One of the ways of converting it is through the transformation of physical resources to digital resources for academic work. For instance: Instead of re-printing out numerous drafts of a potential dissertation students can use online platforms and services. Instructors who require assistance to complete their work can easily look for services and get quality services while remaining environmentally friendly. Students also save trees when they use computers as they replaced the drain of energy and cutting down trees during the writing process.

I greatly agree with this statement. replacing physical resources to digital resources really could make a difference with reducing our carbon footprint by not using certain physical sources, like papers and such. Considering paper is more cheap than digital devices, do you think money could be a roadblock to this carbon footprint solution, considering some countries may not have the money to provide these digital resources? as stated in many sources, some countries do not provide money for education, like Comoros, where education spending is around 2.4% of the total GDP. In addition, At my old school, we could not afford enough computers for every class, resulting to most of our work being done on paper. Your idea displayed can definitely help many schools and students around the world reduce their carbon footprints, but I do think money could be a big factor between whether certain schools and students can or cannot switch to this decision.

source: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/25-count … otal%20GDP.

I agree, I notice that a majority of paper in classrooms comes from the mandate of notebooks, rather than online documents. I wonder how much of a difference using technology would make? I understand that it can be difficult to implement this in classrooms, because technology comes with distraction. I am curious as to how this might be solved. Technology can have a negative impact itself, and as stated above is quite costly. Is there a way to make technology more accessible, and more carbon and hydrogen efficient?

After using the I2sea carbon emissions calculator, I was pleased to find that my carbon footprint was below the average for most categories in California, except for transportation. This didn’t come as a surprise, but I was a bit confused because I don't ride in the car that often, I take the bus whenever I can, and I only went on one round trip by plane this year. I started to wonder what steps I could take to reduce my carbon emissions from flying. Is there a way to fly without burning fossil fuels and realseing harmful gasses into the environment? Additionally, the I2sea calculator prompted me to think more critically about what our school lunches consist of each day. Overall, the lunch program is pretty good; my school uses compostable plates in the main areas. However, many items are still wrapped in plastic. Even with the main food served on compostable plates, a lot of non-compostable trash is generated during lunch, and many people don’t properly sort their waste before disposing of it. This must be harmful to the environment, as the plastic can release harmful gases into the atmosphere.

I just measured my carbon footprint and was relieved that most of my results were below average in all categories. Something I noticed, however, was that while all of my other categories produced less that 700 kgs annually, my travel footprint was over 2000 kgs. My cars are electric and I hardly use anything else to travel, so I imagine most of this came from air travel--that is, the singular round trip flight I've taken in the past year. I knew air travel produced a lot of CO2, but that was even more than I thought. Are there cleaner ways to fly? Is that currently something that even exists?

After doing the carbon forum, I really realized how much our actions as students can contribute to climate change. Everyday choices like how we get to school, what we eat, or how much we rely on technology can add up to huge impacts. For example, using a car instead of biking or walking increases greenhouse gas emissions, while lots of energy is used for streaming or charging devices, contributing to our overall footprint. According to the i2sea data and resources, these choices affect not only our immediate environment but also global sea level rise. Personally, I’ve started making a few changes, like bringing a reusable water bottle to school. I am also trying to reduce the amount of meat I eat. These efforts might seem small, but they are the first steps in lowering my own environmental impact. As students, we need to be responsible to be more conscious of our daily habits. Tools like i2sea help us see the connection between our footprint and global consequences, motivating us to take more meaningful action.

Hi everyone,
Recently, I have been trying to reduce my carbon footprint because I believe small actions can make a big difference.
I started by using my bike instead of a car whenever possible, recycling more carefully, and saving energy at home.
Also, I try to eat less meat and buy local products to support sustainable farming.
It is not always easy, but I think it's important for our future.
What do you do to reduce your carbon footprint? I'd love to hear your ideas!

Hi Ivan122! I really admire what you are doing to try and reduce your carbon footprint! I try to practice a lot of those things at home too, because not only do they help reduce your carbon footprint but they also help keep you healthy. I agree that we should do whatever we can to help our environment and protect it for the future. Another thing that I really try to do is think about my water consumption and heating use. A long hot shower is really relaxing but it also takes a lot more energy to heat all that water for such a long period of time. In my day-to-day life, I personally find that I don’t mind taking shorter showers so that is something I try to do! I really enjoyed hearing someone else’s ideas on ways to reduce our carbon footprints.

Hi Ivan! I like how you are trying to reduce your carbon footprint by biking more and saving energy in you home. I have also been trying to cut down on eating meat, although my attempts have only partially been successful. After calculating my carbon footprint, I noticed that my transportation is way above the average. Although I do like traveling, I realize I should cut down on it and maybe stick to local trips to do. I live close to many good hiking trails so I'm thinking about exploring there instead. I would also love to bike more. I think your choice about biking instead of driving a car is a really great idea I could also implement where I live. Thank you for sharing your ideas to reduce your carbon footprint!

My Household’s Carbon Footprint – Eye-Opening Transportation Impact

After calculating my household’s carbon footprint on the i2Sea website, I was surprised by how much higher my total emissions were compared to the average in my region. The biggest difference came from transportation. My household emitted 19,210 kg of CO₂ from transportation, while the regional average is only 2,557 kg. This gap is mainly due to frequent flying. My family took 46 flights, which alone added up to over 8,000 kg of CO₂.

In contrast, my household’s home energy use was 5,550 kg (compared to 3,757 kg regionally), and food emissions were slightly below average at 2,061 kg. Interestingly, my purchases were much lower than the regional average (268 kg vs. 1,191 kg), which might be because we try not to buy new clothes or electronics often.

This data really helped me see how certain choices — especially travel — can hugely affect the climate. I think it’s important to consider reducing air travel or using carbon offsets in the future. I learned that even if I try to be careful in some areas, one big category like transportation can outweigh all the rest.

This connects with what we’ve been learning about individual action and carbon footprints. According to climate science research, transportation is one of the leading sources of emissions globally, especially in high-income countries. It’s clear that personal choices — like flying less — can make a real difference.

While doing the calculations to know my total carbon dioxide, I found out that a high percent of emissions was from transportation. Now that I know this, i found alternatives to lower the transportation emissions. Some alternatives are using public transportation, carpooling and getting electric cars in the future. I think carpooling is such a great alternative. Not only do you gain friendship, but you actually reduce the carbon emissions because only one car is driven. What I also found out is that my calorie intake, and food production is extremely high. Is this because of the meat that I eat? What are ways I can reduce this?

One of the main reasons my carbon footprint is so high is transportation. Even tho I personally don't drive in a car often and go everywhere by foot, my family uses their cars on a daily basis(work, shopping, running errands...). I honestly think it is unnecessary to use cars to go somewhere that is within walking distance. Im also in shock when I'm going to or from school and see a bunch of cars but every car has one person in it. If you know someone or have friends that are going to the same destination, wouldn't it make sense to drive with them? Instead of driving, I recommend going places by bike, by foot or use public transportation.

I agree! I take public transit to school every day, but because of how much my family has to use cars to get to work/ my younger sibling's school that category was very high for me. My city has things like carpool lanes on the highways/freeways but we are severely lacking in a good public transit system. I always try to walk or carpool to get to where I need to go, but because of where I live it's very difficult. I wish more cities had good public transit systems, and I think that would help with the problem of everyone individually driving everywhere.

I completely agree with both of these responses. As a student athlete I am not only driving or taking public transport to school, but driving to my out of school sports. My mornings consist of either driving to the bus stop or having my mom drive about 10 miles each way to get to school. Along with that, the traffic in the bay area is consistently bad with a usual of one person in each car, clogging the lanes up even more. Due to the amount of poverty in the Bay Area not as many people use public transport that can be utilized for limited traffic and less cares on the road. I think if we can utilize our relationships for carpool or our public transportation resources, we can help get cars off the street and limit our gas usage.

I totally agree, the amount of pollution that gets spread just by cars is unbelievable. When I was in 6th and 7th grade, my parents would drive me and my friend to school every day because of scheduling complications. Not only did it turn out to be a really fun experience, but it also reduced my friend's carbon admission in the process. It was a both fun and more eco-friendly way to travel. This video really dives deep into what we can do to reduce the amount of carbon we produce.

Public transportation is less accessible because of all the roads and highways in Oakland. The whole city is designed for the use of cars which makes it harder to take buses or bikes, which benefits car companies. We should remove some of these unescessary roads and make more bus stops and train stations to preserve energy. Using more public transport will help prevent further air pollution.

I think this was a very interesting project to do to become more aware of my carbon footprint and small things that I can do to help the environment. It was similar to how we did the math project because it made me think more and still makes me think.

I believe that this exercise helped my put an accurate number towards my Carbon footprint. I was very surprised with my number. But i also believe that reforms like not selling plastic packaging in schools will help reduce our areas carbon footprint.

This questionnaire helped me realize how every aspect of my life produces carbon. Previously, I thought flights and heating/cooling systems contributed the most to my carbon footprint, but I was surprised to learn that food consumption was my biggest factor. I believe excessive carbon production is ingrained into our way of living as Americans. It would be difficult to live in an extremely carbon conservative way if it's normalized to produce a lot of carbon in our area.

I think as students we need to be more conscience of our carbon footprint. This is because of the negative effects caused by climate change and CO2 in the atmosphere. For example my largest producer of CO2 was travel so in the future I will be more conscience about where I go and try to carpool or use public transportation when posibile.

I'm surprised that things like yard work can contribute to a person's carbon footprint, I wasn't aware people took care of their yards so much that it would add to their footprint. I don't have a yard or a yard so it doesn't cross my mind. I also didn't know that front-loading washing machines can effect a person's footprint versus a top-loading one. I've only ever had front-loading ones and I didn't know there is that much of a difference.

As a student in a science class, I was surprised by how high the average carbon footprint for my area was. I believe that the reason why the carbon footprint was so high in my area is due to us relying on imports instead of growing food. For example, people who live off the land most likely have less of a carbon footprint because the food they eat is organic. Furthermore, it does not have to be flown or shipped in by plane or boat, which cuts the carbon released from transportation. I believe that students can inform their peers around them about the amount of extra carbon that is released because they are buying products that have to travel long distances to arrive in markets. In short, I believe that the footprint in my area was so high because it relies on imports, rather than growing food on its own. If my peers start growing more food, we can lower our carbon footprint and help the environment.

Students often do not think of their carbon and how much they are emitting. Students really feel that they are learning about climate change and global warming, and they often think about things that can help them, but never really take action. In today's activity, I learned how much food contributes to your carbon footprint. I was surprised that that was the biggest contributor to my carbon footprint, because I thought it was going to be transportation. Turns out, eating well and healthy can still cause carbon footprint, and the best way to stop it is to turn closer to plant proteins, and eat more natural things and if possible, even eat your own food that you produce through gardening and naturally farming.

The highest part of my carbon footprint was with my food spending.  I feel that this is because I eat a lot of foods that come in these plastic and cardboard containers, and I am increasing my carbon footprint by a significant amount.  To combat this, I can start to buy foods that are sold outside of boxes, and fewer snacks, to improve my efficiency.

To have a better understanding why your food spending is the largest part of your carbon footprint, it's not the plastic or cardboard containers but actually the meat. To be more specific it's all the land, energy, and the waste used/created by the livestock. If you want to decrease your food carbon footprint, you should buy less meat, not saying you should be completely vegan, but incorporate more veggies or less meat into your diet. You contribute to the problem as you spend more on meat, and the companies supplying are more likely to continue to supply more meat and increase the carbon release.

Hi there!

Thanks for sharing your thoughts—it's true that meat production has a big impact on the environment, and it's great that you pointed out how much land, energy, and waste it involves. You're absolutely right that reducing meat consumption, even a little, can make a real difference!

That said, your message came across a bit strongly. Some people might feel judged even if that wasn’t your intention. Maybe next time you could frame it in a more encouraging way—like suggesting simple swaps or sharing personal experiences. That way, it feels more like support than criticism, and people might be more open to change.

Still, I really appreciate the facts you shared—it’s super important to talk about these things!

When I submitted my carbon footprint I noticed that the "home" category was the highest. I think it's because I live in two homes - one with my mom and sister and then one with my dad and sister (same sister). There for, there are less people in my household for the same use of electricity and gas. Some things I could do to make my carbon footprint go down in the "home" category would be to turn off the heat at night, only use heat when it's really cold and a sweater won't fix it, turn off lights when I leave the room, take shorter showers, buy LED lights instead of incandecent light bulbs, and only run the dishwasher when it's full. I'm sure there are more, if anyone has suggestions please let me know!

Hi TeaganCR!

I really enjoyed reading your post, and it's great that you're aware of your environmental impact and already thinking about concrete steps to reduce it. It's smart that you noticed how living in two homes might increase your energy use, and you're already planning how to balance that out.

I’d just add that it might be helpful to look at the bigger picture—for example, how often you travel between those two homes and what kind of transportation you use, since that can also contribute a lot to your footprint. Also, instead of focusing only on electricity and heating, you might want to consider changes in your diet or your consumption habits. Those can often have a bigger impact than we expect!

In any case, it’s awesome that you're open to suggestions—keep it up!

I have noticed significantly different trends in global carbon footprint averages. I think that the climate, social norms, economic status, environmental consciousness of the nation in which you live are all important contributing factors. For example, where I live in Vancouver, the average carbon footprint for students at my school is 8,844. This is around average for most of the world, but for some places, for example compared to some schools in California, it is extremely low. I think part of this has do with the fact that are more wealthy than the average person where I live, so they fly much more than average. Also the average purchases are much higher, likely because they have more money to buy things. Also, in much more extreme climates, you use more carbon to heat homes. In dense cities, the carbon footprint for transportation is lower than rural areas, because it less walkable, and longer distances are travelled every day. These are just a few thoughts on why carbon footprints vary so much globally.

Hi tivakc! I agree that your carbon footprint varies for where you live. A big contributor of the difference of our carbon footprints to the places I think is transportation.Where I live transit is a big part of the city and there are so many options to walk ,bus, and sky train.But for example in more rural areas they can only drive to get simple things like groceries or to get school. I think it’s important to factor in what is accessible for others in different cities instead of just judging people for what parts they play in climate change. It would be great if all cities had transit, locally grown food, and a fresh water supply. Does anyone have any ideas of what we can change in our communities to make things more accessible?