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 >
Various Transportation Carbon Footprint
When I look at the carbon footprints for transportation around the world, I first notice that it is mostly around 1000-2000kg in Europe. But when I go to America, China, or South America, the numbers get really big to over 10000kg. Why would that happen? I connect it to my own experience. I moved to US last year and my way of getting to school has a drastic change. I went to school by car every single day in China simply because I don't have train in my city and the bus ain't covering the whole city. But in US, I take bus and inner-city train every day. I believe public transportation plays an important role in this difference of transportation carbon output. Public transportation is more sophisticated in Europe with trains, subways, and bus covering the whole country. Yet in China, some places in US, or South America, public transportation still needs improvement and people do not use it daily instead of driving their own car.