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 >
Air Conditioning
My family does not have an air conditioning system in our house because in the Bay Area it barely gets above 80 even in the Summer. But sometimes it becomes unbearable and in these times I always wondered why we didn't have air conditioning. But after my research, I realized how much better it was that my family doesn't. "Air conditioning release gases that include chlorofluorocarbon and hydrochlorofluorocarbon. They have a negative impact on the environment as they are part of the greenhouse gases that trap heat and lead to depletion of the ozone layer" (Africawild.net). The problem is that the hotter our environment gets, the more reliant we become on air conditioning systems. This is a huge issue that makes our world hotter and hotter every moment and every day but what do you do instead. Fans electric or paper ones are great and there is a new invention of a geothermal cooling system that will help save energy and lessen your carbon foot print.