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 >
Transportation across oceans
Did you know that 3.5 to 4 percent of all climate change emissions are caused by cargo ships (georgiastraight.org). Or that every mile traveled by an airplane produces on average a little over 53 pounds of carbon dioxide (blueskymodel.org). In a world of global supply chains and rapidly
expanding trade, cargo ships and airplanes are becoming increasing sources of co2. Airplane and cargo ships are used every day, 24/7. We use them for trade, travel, and even shipping off trash to other countries! We rely on them immensely but they sadly produce tons of co2. So, what can be done? Or has anything already been done? Currently a total of 28 aviation leaders put forward their goals in a letter released by the Air Transport Action Group. Their goals included a 1.5 percent improvement in fuel efficiency and a 50 percent reduction in CO2 emissions by 2050 (boeing.com). Cargo ships, however, haven't done much to reduce co2 emissions. This is mainly because there is no pressure for them to do so, shipping emissions were excluded from the Paris pact and there are no plans to impose caps on the industry’s overall emissions (yale.edu). So, what can be done to help reduce ships and planes carbon footprint? The main things people are doing and will probably continue to do is improve how efficient ships and planes run. Other people are trying to find alternative fuel sources such as biofuel that ships and planes can use (washingtonpost.com). My personal thoughts on things everyone can do is to keep things local. Don't buy clothes that have to be shipped across the ocean or food that comes from other countries. We also need to find a better way of recycling since currently we are sending all of our recycling to China via cargo ships (npr.org). Last, if we brought back more manufacturing (hopefully clean manufacturing) to America we would be less reliant on trade with other countries and transportation emissions would hopefully by lowered. Leave your thoughts below on ways we can reduce co2 emissions that occur from transportation across the seas.
Sources:
1. https://georgiastrait.org/wp-content/up … al_Web.pdf
2. http://blueskymodel.org/air-mile
3. http://www.boeing.com/features/2015/10/ … 10-15.page
4. https://e360.yale.edu/features/reduce_c … tion_paris