I was a bit surprised to see that my carbon footprint is slightly higher than the average person in my state. I have a pretty busy lifestyle as a student athlete, and I live with my family of four, so it's often hard to commit to doing things that better the environment.

I'm interested in seeing if people have ideas on simple things I can do regularly that will help better the environment and world.

Does anyone have ideas for simple ways to reduce my carbon footprint?

Yeah, I was also suprised to see that my carbon footprint was a little higher then my state carbon emissons personaly for me most of my travel can be done by biking and walking instead of using a car.

In order to lower your carbon footprint you could begin to walk certain distances or take a bike for example. There is also lots of room for using reusable products in this day and age. If you are a student athlete you could carpool to practice and games that would lower your footprint as well.

While I did not experience the same as you, my footprint was lower, I found that my food footprint was higher than the average person in my area.  I think I could be trying harder to eat more earth friendly, less beef and processed foods but I also think it has a lot to do with the fact that my family really likes meat too.  I know I need to try harder to eat less meals a week that have meat.  I do relate to having a high transportation footprint as well.  I think it is important that as a teenager I walk places before I get my license.  I know that most of our carbon footprints fit into these 4 categories (food, transportation, home, and purchases) which for me are all under control of my parents.  "Usually, the bulk of an individual’s carbon footprint will come from transportation, housing and food." (https://www.nytimes.com/guides/year-of- … -footprint)

I think to answer your question of simple ways to reduce our footprint we can:
- take shorter showers
- make sure not to run extra water while washing dishes or brushing your teeth
- have at least 3 vegetarian meals a week if you eat a lot of meat
- take public transportation if going somewhere accessible by bus
Using busses or trains can help because in dense cities it is better to have a larger vehicle carrying multiple people than lots of cars carrying one or two people(https://www.nationalexpresstransit.com/blog/why-is-public-transportation-good-for-the-environment/#:~:text=By%20reducing%20the%20amount%20of,air%20quality%20to%20their%20residents.).

I was also very surprised to see that my carbon footprint was higher than my state average. I do think that I do a good job recycling, composting, and not using that much heat in the house. Some areas that showed where I struggled was in transportation. I think this is because I drive to basketball practice and to school a lot, and not because of other things like airplanes. In the future I can try to use public transportation more often and walk or bike to places that are close by. Another area where I think I can improve my carbon footprint is in food. I did think I did a good job in this section, because almost all of the food I get is organic and local. I think the reason my carbon footprint is high in this category is because of the amount of meat I eat, which is bad for the environment. In order to reduce my carbon footprint I can try to limit the amount of meat and other animal products I eat.

I too had a carbon footprint that was slightly higher than the average. Firstly, I do my best to recycle and make sure that I put everything in the right basket. Secondly, I do my best to either finish what I am eating or compost any leftovers that I will not eat later. Lastly, I realized that the main reason my footprint was so high was because of the air conditioning and heating that I use. I am going to try and turn off all of the lights when I am not using them and, and with the 4-9 PM Califonia article and subject, I will try more to use less energy in that time so that I can help keep California golden. I think that if everyone tries their best to do this we really can, all together, make a difference.

In my experience, some of the most realistic ways to lower your carbon footprint are to turn off the lights in your house that are unnecessary to have on, which is something that I often struggle with. You can also start eating local more. Eating local means that there are less trucks that will need to drive cross-country with your food. Eating locally is an easy thing to do, and it helps a lot since is will reduce CO2 emissions coming from big trucks. Unplugging your devices once they are fully charged is another great way to reduce your carbon footprint, seeing as how continuing to charge your devices when you don't need to uses up energy. This is a very easy thing to improve, and I hope to get better at remembering to do it too. Lastly, practicing home-cooking reduces food waste. This is important because according to gobalcitizen.org, "1 billion tons of food are wasted globally every year according to the latest United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) report on food waste".(https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/conten … -lockdown/).

As a student athlete myself, I have found that some of the largest contributors to my own carbon footprint are carbon emissions from traveling, specifically by cars and planes. It's hard to limit your carbon footprint while traveling by air, but that being said, there are still ways to do just that. According to a recent article by the Ocean Foundation, ways to limit your carbon footprint while flying include: "Fly Economy. First class seats take up more space and therefore increase the amount of fuel used per passenger. Fly nonstop. This is a more efficient use of fuel, and who wants to stop anyway? Pick an airline committed to high environmental standards, fuel efficiency or a carbon offset program."

The Ocean Foundation Article:
https://oceanfdn.org/how-to-reduce-your … ou-travel/