Students from around the world calculated their class mean and standard deviations for their footprints and posted them on our world map.
Do you see differences across the globe? If so, why do you think those differences exist?
Did you use the calculator to try to reduce your footprint down to the average from a citizen of another country? What changes would you have to make to lower your footprint in this way? Are you going to try and take some of these actions in your daily life?
Student Footprints >
Reducing main CO2 emissions 3
While calculating my carbon footprint I noticed how much CO2, planes emit. I went from a little above average, to nearly the end of the bar with just a couple plane flights. Taking plane flights for many people around the world happens a couple times per year. Also, according to the NY Times, " One round-trip flight from New York to Europe or to San Francisco creates a warming effect equivalent to 2 or 3 tons of carbon dioxide per person." a huge increase in the CO2 emissions around the world. This affects us a lot because when CO2 increases, so does temperature. So if the temperature around the world is increasing, then so is the speed of global warming melting of the polar ice caps.
Citation: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/27/sunda … ravel.html
Yes, very good point Luke. I have also been taking a lot of plane flights over the last year. Round trips to places like Hawaii emit an extreme amount of CO2 into the air. What our family has been doing to try and lesson our plane flights is driving to places like Southern Cali and Phoenix. Even though CO2 is still being emitted it is much less than taking a plane.
I completely agree with you Lucas. For my whole life I have taken many flights all over the world. The one place I go to twice year though is Spain. From San Francisco to Spain i take two flights. The first one being 10 hours and the second one being two hours. Every time we go to Spain we take an hour plane flight to France which is right next to Spain, and to lessen the amount of CO2 in the air, we have decided to start driving to France instead of taking an hour long flight.
That's a pretty nifty post, if I may say so myself. Good work son,