Students from around the world calculated their class mean and standard deviations for their footprints and posted them on our world map.
Do you see differences across the globe? If so, why do you think those differences exist?
Did you use the calculator to try to reduce your footprint down to the average from a citizen of another country? What changes would you have to make to lower your footprint in this way? Are you going to try and take some of these actions in your daily life?
Student Footprints >
Climate change is real and humans increase its effects.
Through out history, the climate of the earth changed over time, the ice age and the PETM. There was a mini ice age from the about the 13th century to 19th century where the Earth's temperature dropped a few degrees . Now Earth is warming up again but it is getting hotter because of human activities. The mini ice age ended in the 1800s and that's when heavy industry started forming in countries like Britain and the U.S.
As human carbon emissions increased in the 20th centuries the world steadily got warmer. The world natural is getting warmer but human use of fossil fuel is going to make it hotter than anything before. If we burn up the last reserves of fossil fuel the release of Carbon would be more than the time of the PETM. Climate change is going to happen natural but if human don't reduce the CO2 emissions it is going to get worse than whats going to happen naturally.