Before this assignment, I believed that my family produced less carbon than the average family, but I was surprised by the results. My total carbon footprint was 15616 kgs. While our food and purchase categories were less than average, our home and transportation were more than double the regional average. Every day I take the AC Transit Public Bus to school and back, and my family travels by plane in the summers. I wonder if cutting down on travel would reduce my carbon footprint, as transportation was my highest section, at 7,730 kgs. While riding the bus does produce a significant amount of CO2, I feel that taking a public bus is more effective as many people can carpool. At home, my house relies on gas for energy, and we have not yet added solar panels. This made me wonder how much adding solar panels would affect my family's carbon footprint, as it did not make a significant difference when I tried changing the power source on the carbon footprint calculator. According to EnergySage, “Choosing a clean source of electricity like solar panels can eliminate the same amount of carbon emissions that would result from burning over 5,000 pounds of coal each year” One reason my family has a lower carbon footprint caused by food is that we eat almost exclusively vegetarian, and buy local and organic food whenever we can. According to a BBC news article, cutting meat and dairy products from your diet could your carbon footprint from food by two-thirds.

https://news.energysage.com/health-envi … ar-energy/
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-46459714