It is interesting to see the differences in student footprints across the country and across the globe. The carbon footprint calculator is a very accurate representation of how much carbon students and their family emit, however there are some flaws particularly in the transportation portion. Students who live in large cities or states would significantly have to travel than students in smaller cities. Calculating your transportation over just one year could be inaccurate when calculating your footprint because some people travel more some years than others. For example, this year I took two large trips, one to Hawaii and one to New York. Both places are significantly far away from where I live, so my transportation portion of my footprint was more than twice the national average. My family does not normally travel that much in one year however. I also live in a big state, and places I travel regularly are more spread apart then they would be if I lived in a smaller state, ultimately causing me to use a large amount of carbon when I travel from place to place.

I agree. I think that living in a big city definitely increases your overall carbon footprint. Because the city is larger, driving longer distances is necessary for most situations, from going to school to buying food at your grocery store. It is important to take into account where you live and how big your home city or town is when looking at your impact from the carbon footprint.

I agree; living in a big city/state would mean more transportation versus living in a smaller community. In my personal carbon footprint calculation, the transportation portion was the largest. This being because I took five long trips in the past year. I think transportation is one of the areas that is much harder to cut back on, especially if your commute to everyday activities, such as school or work is extensive.

I also live in a big state where things are very spread apart. I live over 20 miles from my school, 25 miles from my uncle, and 30 miles from my pediatrician. It seems like everywhere I need to be requires a long commute that increases my carbon footprint. Don't feel alone that transportation emissions were twice the average, mine were four times my regional average. I 'achieved' this with one plane trip only this past year to Washington D.C. My daily commute to school is what caused my transportation footprint to be so large. I cannot change this easily because my family does not plan on relocating closer to my school. My dad's office happens to be one mile from our home. His carbon footprint would be well below the regional average and below mine.

I agree too. When you live in a big city or a city that is so dependent on cars it is definitely harder to lower your transportation section on your carbon footprint. That is why I think it is important that we try and reduce our carbon footprint in other ways, such as recycling, taking short showers or making sure we turn the lights off when we leave a room.

I agree with this post, but at the same time, I live in a big city but I had a relatively small carbon footprint. I think the main thing with people in the big city is how much they leave their lights on, the amount of trash they have, how much they travel, and how far they have to commute to work everyday.

I agree with the comment above. My carbon footprint was lower than average so this isn't correct for everyone. People in a big city can still do things to reduce their carbon footprint and even though people in suburbs have a lower carbon footprint, they can still do some things that make their footprint bigger, like if someone had a job in the city and had to commute to work everyday.

I totally agree with this I also live in a big city and live about 30+ minutes away from my school. Unfortunately, my city doesn't offer good public transportation so it is hard to cut back on taking a car everywhere. I wish more cities had better public transportation available because it would cut carbon footprints in half. It is different for everyone though because some people live closer to school and work so it is hard to determine if living in a larger city affects your transportation footprint.