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 >
Air pollution
Air pollution is one of the major problems of today. Millions of people all over the world live in areas in which the air is not safe to breathe.
One of the main sources of this type of pollution is industry. Numerous factories and plants release into the atmosphere a lot of waste such as poisonous chemicals and, what is worse, particles of heavy metals. This process not only produces harmful effects on the atmosphere, but influences man’s health as well. People suffer from lung diseases more and more often or have headaches, breathing such polluted air.
Waste, created by people may occur in the form of gases or particles of solid and liquid matter which appear as a result of burning fossil fuels. Burning of garbage also contributes to the problem.
One more dramatic thing is an increasing number of cars and other means of transport as their fumes penetrate into the atmosphere and destroy the ozone layer which protects the Earth from the dangerous light of the Sun.