Final Blog

Happy early Thanksgiving folks!

 For this final blog, we would like you to reflect on your habits. This will require you to calculate your carbon footprint and to give yourself recommendations on how to decrease it. Please be honest when answering the questions. 

 https://www.nature.org/en-us/get-involved/how-to-help/consider-your-impact/carbon-calculator/

Use this website.

Comments

  1. aidan cocoNovember 24, 2019 at 4:09 PM

    I still cannot figure out how to make my own blogposts.

    My family's carbon footprint was calculated at 46 tons of C02 per year based on the nature.org calculator. That was 37% better than average for a household of three. I had to estimate for a number of the values however. The main area we came out ahead on was travel due to the fact that we only have one car and its a hybrid. Most families have more cars per person and ones that get lower gas mileage. My dad has always walked or biked to work. Lancaster in general is a great city for walking. On the other hand my family tends to travel by airplane more than average. This did not seem to add nearly as much to our carbon footprint though. This is probably because airplanes carry hundreds of passengers. Reducing our air travel may be a way toward slightly lowering out carbon footprint, but its not like there is yet an eco-friendly alternative and our family lives all over the country.

    On the home said we also came out ahead because we get 100% of our energy from clean energy programs. We also solely use natural gas which is more efficient. I cannot imagine we could get more efficient here, beyond moving to a smaller, newer, living space to reduce our heating costs. Old houses like ours are often poorly insulated. Our food consumption I estimated as a little better than average because on of our members is a vegetarian. We also generally try to buy local produce but that was not taken into account in the category. For the shopping category, I had no idea what the answers were so I just put the averages.

    One of the most important things I learned from this exercise is the importance of recording. It's impossible to accurately reduce your carbon footprint based on estimates. I also learned just how much travel and especially travel by car contributes to your carbon footprint. The average for families like ours was 25 tons of CO2, almost half the total carbon emissions for a family. I guess I always knew generally that cars are bad for CO2 emissions but this exercise crystalized just how bad they are.

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  2. AnonymousDecember 1, 2019 at 8:30 PM

    Shane Brackup
    Final Blog

    The carbon footprint of my household was much higher than I wished it would be. My family all drives a significant amount. I often drive from school in Lancaster to my home outside of Philadelphia which adds many miles on the road. My parents and brother both drive each day to and from work and do not utilize public transportation. While public transportation is not an immediate option near my house, we should purchase more fuel-efficient vehicles in the future to help with the gas. For example, my brother drives a large truck that is not the most ideal for gas. My family drives often and we should think of ways of how we can reduce our carbon footprint regarding driving, such as carpooling when possible.

    While I do not fly often, my parents get on airplanes frequently to travel for business. This adds to the above average carbon footprint. My sister lives in Washington, DC and utilizes public transportation almost every day which helps reduce our footprint. While the utilities at my house are not ideal, I think we as a family try our best to always shut lights off that do not need to be in use and recycle every week. One way I can make an immediate impact is taking shorter showers. The suggestions listed for how I can reduce my carbon footprint were appreciated and I will most certainly try to implement changes into my daily routine to help the environment.

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