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 >
If I had control over my family footprint...
If I had control over my family footprint: First of all, I would add solar panels on my house to reduce my houses CO2's output. Then, I would only buy food from local farmers markets, thus reducing truck transporting and CO2. I would carpool as much as often, which I usually already do. And I would walk more to montclair to get dinner or for any needed supplies. Lastly, I would use reusable water bottles, unplug all the electronics when Im not using them, and other things. This would reduce my Carbon footprint and help the environment.
These are really good ideas Freddy, I agree we need to think of ways to lower our footprints
why thank you Mr. Brendan W from USA
no problem @fFreddyB(USA)BOD2SN we need smart people in the world like you
Wow! That is so nice! I feel like we could be good friends if I didnt live so far away!
We have a lot in common, thats too bad that we do not live close to each other, we could have some very good and environmentally good conversations!
Agreed
We could carpool to cut down on our carbon footprints if we lived closer
If I had control over my families footprint then it would be a lot smaller, because I take quick showers and don't waste much food if any at all.
Your ideas are really good, Freddy! I especially love the idea of going to local farmers markets more often as well; however, I think that idea could go even further by having gardens similar to the victory gardens used in wars back then, like in WWII. Victory gardens were used to grow their own food, so the canned goods could go to soldiers fighting instead. In the article "Through the Generations", Andreatta recalls "In fact,
raising a small flock of chickens or having a pig in
one’s backyard was the norm in an urban setting" (3). Owning animals and farms used to be a norm; it enables you to carefully control the food you're growing. Nowadays, people have no idea what's going into their food: "New technologies designed for large-scale agriculture have relied heavily on mechanization, GMO seeds, fossil fuel and synthetic fertilizers,
herbicides, and pesticides" (4). Going back to these gardens could enable us to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide emitted from the transportation aspect of getting food around. Also, you benefit from this, for you can treat your food per sonally and naturally.
Source: Andreatta, Susan L. "Through The Generations: Victory Gardens For Tomorrow's Tables." Culture, Agriculture, Food & Environment 37.1 (2015): 38-46. Academic Search Complete. Web. 29 Sept. 2016.