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 >
Does being vegan really lower one;s carbon footprint?
A recent trend in the Bay Area is converting to veganism, or the removal of all meat and animal products, such as eggs and dairy, from one;s diet. The reasoning behind this is that it will somehow lower their carbon emissions. This is actually true, because the simple process of raising that many animals to feed everyone in the world is taxing on the atmosphere. By boycotting these products, it forces producers to lower their livestock counts, thereby reducing carbon emissions. Although it may not seem like it can do a lot, even a low meat diet can save the equivalent of a plane trip from New York to London each year.
I completely agree with you. Not only does a single persons contribution towards veganism lowers their person carbon footprint, but the communities footprint as well. Your use of analytical data similar to that of the trends of the Bay Area depicts this communal change happening within our own backyard. This change really does cut back the carbon footprint of both a single and multiple beings, cutting out a middle man in the eco-system food chain and reducing the amount of carbon released in order to eat a meal, eventually , as you said, lowering our footprints within the atmosphere.
This is very interesting, Arjun. Before reading this, I did not realize quite how large the effect of going vegan really is towards carbon emission. Your example of the plane really put an idea into my head of this effect. Also, according to the Daily Utah Chronicle, meat production is the driving force of climate change. Therefore, one not eating any form of meat would be producing a very low and efficient carbon footprint back into the atmosphere.