I believe not only me but many people have found their extreme high carbon footprint throughout the calculation. At first, for me, it was so unbelievable! But after some time and contemplated, I started to believe it. The foremost part of my carbon footprint is the transportation especially the times of flights. I took the airplane for 8 times last years and that could cause so much damage to our environment. The worse thing is that I went to the same places twice by air. Why didn't I just finish what I wanted to do in one time? It is so disadvantageous to our world. So, in this year, I plan to take the airplane less frequently than last year in order to protect our earth.

I noticed that airplane flights really increase carbon footprints, too! There were some students in my class who took 4-5 flights or more over the summer for traveling and their footprints were much higher than everyone else's. Decreasing the amount of time we spend on airplanes is definitely a good way to decrease the carbon footprint.

I also found that transportation was the largest part of my carbon footprint by far. In every other section of the carbon footprint calculator, my footprint was smaller than average, probably because I always try to consider the environment in my decisions and purchases throughout the day. However, I was surprised to see that because my transportation section of my carbon footprint was so large, my whole carbon footprint was much larger than average. I do not fly very often—last year I just took one round trip. Thus I was also surprised to see the size my transportation section at first. I realized that the reason my carbon footprint was so large in the transportation section was simply from driving. One of the reasons that it would be large to due driving is that my car does not get very good mileage (only about 28 mpg or 8.4 L/100km). Another reason is that I have sports practice twice a day, so I have to drive to sports, then home, then to school, then back to sports, then finally back home almost every day. I calculated these trips and every day I end up driving abou t 36.2 miles. Public transportation is not a logical option for these specific trips, but I could drive more people to school with me. Even though I would still be driving the same amount, by driving others I could reduce the amount of people driving to school. Additionally, I could reduce my carbon footprint by getting a hybrid car for my next car. I played with the carbon footprint calculator and saw that liters of gas per 100km of driving (mileage) is directly proportional to the size of my carbon footprint for driving. Because the lease of my car is almost up, this solution would definitely be a plausible and effective way for me to reduce my carbon footprint. Are there any other factors besides flying and driving that made your carbon footprint larger than average? Also, do you think that everyone should be required to only drive hybrid cars because they are much better more the environment?

Transportation was a large factor for me also, even though I only took one plane trip within the last year. I drive back and forth from school and I also have sports and extracurricular activities. I've proposed that carpools will reduce the amount of times I have to drive in my own personal car.  The comment above proposes that people should drive hybrid cars because they are better for the environment. I think this is a great idea because it is pretty hard to stop driving totally, so a hybrid car would be a more efficient way to travel. Do you all agree?