Many students using our footprint calculator said that they could not pledge to reduce their home footprints because they were not making the decisions for the household. Here is your chance to design your own sustainable virtual household!
If you had your own home, what would you do to make it more energy efficient? Where would you get your electricity from? Where would your house be? Would you live near to your school or work or local transit options? Where would you get your food from?
MY Family Footprint >
Hot Outside, Cool Inside
Like many down here in the South, we keep the air conditioner running most of the year. There is only a short period when we don't rely on it to cool the house. The constant cooling of buildings is extremely bad on the environment as it releases so much carbon into the atmosphere. I know that at my house we turn the upstairs air conditioner off during the day since no one is up there. Even downstairs we set the temperature higher, so it isn't running continuously. While on vacation, the air conditioner gets turned off. It really doesn't make sense to keep it running and cooling the house if no one is home and needing it. A few more tips to save energy while keeping cool can be found at: http://energy.gov/energysaver/tips-air-conditioners