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 travel and Its repercussions
After calculating my personal footprint, which was 19,000 cubic tons per year, I saw that it was well above the regional average. This was not very surprising as I knew my carbon footprint would be high because I had taken two cross country trips and flew both ways on both. The travelling accounted for 13,000 cubic tons of my carbon footprint. I think that if families were able to limit their trips to as little flying as possible that would greatly lower the amount of carbon each family emits. According to Blueskymodel.org, every mile of air travel releases about 53 pounds of carbon into the atmosphere. A trip across the continental united states is about 2500 miles. That means on just one flight about 132,500 pounds of carbon emissions. Also, there are thousands of flights just in the US alone every year.
If everybody tried to cut down on the amount they air travelled then the effects airplanes have could be lower. People don’t have to stop taking airplanes, maybe take a shorter flight and drive the rest of the way or use some other form of transportation. Also , people can push big airlines to adopt new fuels or techniques that are safer to the environment. A little change goes a long way.
I definitely noticed many of the same things after looking into why flight had such a large impact on my carbon footprint. One thing that I saw a lack of in my initial search however, was an effort to move to, or even research on a large scale, more environmentally friendly forms of fuel for airplanes. I had not realized the magnitude of airplane emissions previous to finding my carbon footprint, but now I think needs to be focused on more. It needs to be more widely recognized as a necessary part of the switch to alternative energy sources. From further research of jet fuel alternatives, I have learned that there is a relatively large amount of research directed towards it, more than I had previously thought. This however, doesn't mean that the issue shouldn't necessarily get more public attention than it already has. Bringing the issues of jet fuel emissions to greater public attention could still lead to more of an effort by many, to reduce flights when possibl e, and could even help to increase funding for research to help air travel to become eco-friendly.