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 >
Carbon Footprint
The differences that occur across the global are attributed to technology and the use of energy. In European countries, citizens tend to walk or bike more. Gas prices are extremely high in Europe. This indirectly encourages more people to use other means of transportation. There is also less urban sprawl in European countries, as their infrastructure system has been around much longer than that of the United States.
Obesity is unfortunately common in the U.S.A. http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/adult.html
The CDC reports that over 1/3 of Americans are obese. Thus, we are eating more food than we ought to.
My highest carbon footprint results came about through my living quarters. I live with my family. There are a lot of things that we can do such as using less hot water, and regulating the water that goes into our toilet tanks. We would recycle more, however our county only takes certain recyclables.