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 >
Food Related CO2
For many of us, food is something we eat without thinking much about it. Little do we know the food we eat is a very big part of our carbon footprint. There are many ways the food we eat affects our CO2 emissions. Waste is produced at every step of the process. Vehicles use gas and other fossil fuels to transport our food, waste is made when packaging it, and any disposable packaging we use also increases our carbon footprint. Great ways to reduce our carbon footprint are through food. For example, we can use more reusable containers and utensils instead of plastic ones and eat locally sourced food to reduce transportation costs.
Food is an area that many people do not think affects their carbon footprint, but in my carbon footprint, it was the section that made up most of my footprint. This was shocking to me because I had not thought about all the CO2 that is used to get my food where it is in the store or a restaurant. The way that many companies make their food is very damaging to the environment because they try to make it for the least amount of money then transporting it overseas or thousands of miles can produce a massive carbon footprint. Below is a video that briefly goes over how our food starts before it gets to our plates.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXauFbClTWg