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 >
How my Carbon Footprint Reacted to My Flying Overseas Every Year:
I go to Thailand every year from Houston so I wasn't surprised when my transportation footprint was well above average. Thailand is a country that is on the Southeastern tip of Asia and Houston is a southern central city in the US. Getting there is about 21 hours of flying, so 45(ish) hours total for a roundtrip. And there were some domestic flights that I took in Thailand and the US too. So my carbon footprint was really high. In fact, it was a whopping 26318 kgs. My region average is 3112 kgs. Big difference. But like I said earlier, I'm not all that surprised. To reduce that, I can stop taking flights to Thailand. But I would prefer not to because I have family there that I only get to see once a year there. Instead, I can refrain from taking those domestic vacationing flights. Plane trips impact the environment a whole lot. There would be a great decrease of CO2 immissions if we developed a cleaner and a more eco-friendly way to fly. It would greatly help stop Global Warming.
I also noticed how much plane flights affect your carbon footprint. A cleaner, more sustainable type of plane could lower its carbon emissions, making it easier for people to take flights without harming the environment.