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 >
Could Veganism Be the Answer to Climate Change?
According to a report published by the Worldwatch Institute, more than half of greenhouse gas emissions around the world are caused from animal agricultural businesses. Manure, urine, and gas from farm animals release methane and nitrous oxide into the atmosphere. The cut-down or complete eradication of these businesses could possibly be the factor needed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Although, to counter my own argument, even if everyone switched to a plant-based, vegan diet, there would still be wild animals such as cows that still roam and contribute to the climate change. Even so, the deforestation that occurs to create more pastures and roaming space for these animals is also releasing more carbon dioxide into the air, and causing climate change. SOURCES: http://www.preventclimatechange.co.uk/p … hange.html
http://www.hcn.org/articles/how-the-liv … -emissions
While you make a very good point in saying that substances such as manure can be harmful to the atmosphere because they release harmful gasses such as methane and nitrous oxide, manure is actually an essential component to most fertilizers. Switching to a vegan diet and ultimately eliminating manure could also be very harmful to other crops because manure is packed with nutrients that it brings to the soil to help crops grow.
I understand the point about fertilizers, but composting can actually be used in replacement of synthetic fertilizers and can clean the air instead of dumping carbon dioxide into it with cow manure.
Ashleigh S. I think that that's an amazing idea! A lot of people who are vegetarian or vegan have a much smaller carbon footprint.
Agriculture adds only 9%, and cows only attribute to 3% of the greenhouse gas emissions.
SOURCES:
https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/source … -emissions