After calculating my carbon footprint, I was shocked with some of the results. My total footprint is 36,544 kg of Carbon Dioxide in the past year. That is almost 4 times to the average of California, which is 9,727 kg of Carbon Dioxide. By far, the category that contributed most to the total was Transportation. The amount of Carbon Dioxide released was 28,550 kg. That is about 11 times the average use in California. What I found odd was that transportation had the most Carbon Dioxide emissions. After combining the other categories, the amount of Carbon Dioxide is 1/3 of my transportation alone. When looking more closely at what I had submitted, I saw that the only factor that made my emissions so high was travelling on an airplane. In the past year, I have made a total of 4 flights, or 2 round trips. I knew that it would contribute to my carbon footprint a lot, but not nearly as much as I imagined. The flights alone released over 20.000 kg of Carbon Dioxide. The trips were to Australia, and Mexico. My trip to Australia was a required trip in middle school. The trip to Me xico was for family vacation. My carbon footprint is so big from flying, and I do not consider myself a frequent flyer. Many people have to fly weekly for work. Others fly to new places whenever they have the chance. People also have families that they visit. All of these people fly much more than I do. Airplanes are the source of 1.5% of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. It is one of the top 15 sources of it. Airplanes are one of the few modes of transportation that still does not have an energy efficient option. When I first heard that airplanes have no energy efficient models, I immediately thought of solar panels. If solar panels would be placed as the roof of the airplane, then they could get a lot of sunlight during the flight because they would be above the clouds. Sadly, the weight of the solar panels themselves will use all of the energy used. There have not been any more ideas to make airplanes energy efficient. The problem is that more and more people are starting to fly, and someday in the future, the amount of Carbon Dioxide emissions will have exceeded 1.5% unless a solution is found. Making airplanes energy efficient is just one of the steps people can do to make the carbon footprint of humanity less.

For more information on airplane pollution, go to
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news … vironment/

We both have very similar carbon footprint reports. My carbon footprint was 34,203 kg of Carbon Dioxide in the past year and 27,613 kgs of that come from transportation. While some come from the car travel to school, sports, and events, the biggest portion came from the 4 flights I took in the past year. They were all family-related and much farther than your average flight. This supports the fact that air travel releases a huge amount of Carbon Dioxide into our atmosphere and it is one of the larger problems we should tackle. No doubt, like carpooling, people who fly private should try their best to fly more commercial, unless absolutely necessary. However, since most people fly commercial, it should be the biggest priority to modify average airplanes. Some ideas that are very similar to greener cars is to make more fuel efficient engines. Other ideas are to use biofuels that emit less pollution. There are countless other designs that should be examined since air  travel is only increasing, without more effective plans, there will only be an increase in Carbon Dioxide released into the atmosphere.

I can also relate with transportation being the biggest issue when trying to reduce carbon footprint. The biggest problem for this is not only the time spent flying, for example, but more carbon dioxide is released every time a plane lands and takes off. We definitely need to start taking action in the area of transportation since it seems to play a crucial role in the release of carbon dioxide. A good way to start would be by reducing the use of vehicles and planes as much as possible. Either walking/biking to places if it is possible or carpooling with others would diminish the CO2 that comes from transportation and in general it would be a good starting place for all of us who need to reduce carbon dioxide releases from transportation.

I completely agree. Transportation was my biggest issue on my carbon footprint as well.  I feel like transportation is under looked, and is actually a very big problem. Especially with planes. If the planes stay the way they are, i don't think that the future is very bright because of the number of CO2 that they are letting off. In a flight, the time that the most CO2 is being released, is during takeoff, and landing. I think that as a society, we need to find a more eco friendly way of using fuel for the jets. Another solution to the problem of transportation in general, would be to just walk/bike/carpool as much as you can, because the little things add up and make a difference.

I was very surprised by this data aswell. I think that we have not spent enough time and resources to create a fuel efficient jet engine. There are thousands of engineers for hybrid cars but creating a hybrid jet would be far more beneficial to the environment.

I completely agree if planes could use alternative fuels most people carbon footprints would drop considerably.

I also agree with this statement. This past year I traveled in 2 airplane rides to Japan which was a very far flight and increased my carbon footprint a lot. If I didn't have to use planes or if there was an alternative fuel my carbon footprint would have been considerably less.

I have not been in a airplane this past year.  I produce 5,739kg of carbon dioxide per year. By far, I have produced less than half the average of Florida.