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 >
My Carbon Footprint
So in doing this carbon footprint calendar, I realized that I have a WAYYY bigger carbon footprint than I realized. My home usage was extremely high, sitting at just over 7,000 kilograms. My food choices were at around 2,400 kilograms, much closer to my local average, and my personal purchases were far lower than my local region at just over 260 kilograms. Finally, my transportation choices put me at just below 2,300, giving me a total carbon footprint of around 12,000 kilos(2,000 kilos higher than my local average).
What I've learned from this is that my home choices are insanely inefficient. One idea I have is to start composting at home in order to decrease the amount of waste. I've already campaigned for my family to go solar, but our location (behind a hill and surrounded by tons of trees) made that an impractical decision. I also realized that my personal purchases were very low. This surprised me as I have always felt like I was not deprived of enough "stuff".
In conclusion, my home life is ridiculously incompetent in terms of efficiency.