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 >
Showers and dryers.
My carbon footprint was around 15,000 which is somewhere in the middle compared to other footprints around the world. I noticed that the carbon footprint is large in the USA compared to the others. I think a large part of the carbon footprint is the long shower times. Long showers are a huge waste of resources, mainly because of the drought and also because filtering water consumes lots of energy. If people were to reduce their shower times, it would save a lot of energy. Also, I noticed that the carbon footprint is slightly less in Asia. I think that this is because they don't use clothing dryers in Asia, they line dry their clothes. Clothing dryers use from 1800-5000 watts, which consumes a lot of energy.
I agree completely. In the past I have taken longer showers but since my class has done this research I have shortened my showers. As you said they use a great deal of water and power to filter the water that is used.
I have a similarity in my carbon footprint being over 12,000. I agree that taking a long shower will waste many resources that us humans make and try to reuse. Taking long showers isn't a good idea to take because they cause droughts and big losses of water. Usually, the average human would take a hot shower around 5-10 minutes, which uses a lot of energy, which gives off a lot of carbon into the atmosphere. If people were to use room-temperature water, they would not cause so much energy loss. Dryers are another big energy source that uses up so much energy.