We Need Up Our Carbon And Water Footprint

Carbon footprint is the total of greenhouse gases produced by an individual’s habits as well as the energy required to produce things an individual consumes.

Americans, as a whole, do not care about the environment anymore. When we watch the news or simply talk about our day, there are always more pressing topics that come up. However, as a nation, the threat of a failing environment seems to be forgotten because the effects are not as obvious as other threats. Bill McKibben’s “Waste Not, Want Not” discusses how much time, money, resources, and people America has actually wasted and how little effort has been made to try to change. McKibben causes readers to think it is too late to save the environment from our wastefulness because we put our efforts into systems that do not help the environment, spend more money and resources than necessary, and refuse to acknowledge how much were wasting.

Once I had completed the excel spreadsheet containing my family’s total annual CO2 production, I was dumbfounded at how high the amounts were. My family’s electricity was 7374.33, and my annual CO2 from gasoline consumption was 11325.6. I came up with the calculation by completing the following series of step. To start get you will need to figure out how many watts an appliance has. Then you will take that number and multiply it by the number of hours it is on and divide that by 1000. This will give you the kilowatt-hours for a particular appliance. Next, you would take the total kilowatt-hours and multiply that by seven days to get your weekly usage. You would need to multiply the weekly usage by fifty-two weeks to get your annual kilowatt-hours. Now, by

Before taking the quiz, I had a mere idea of how I was helping or harming the environment. I knew about recycling, transportation, and some energy sources—but was not aware of many other behaviors. After going through these quizzes, I gained a better idea of my overall impact on the environment; I am now aware that my individual behaviors make a considerable footprint. Nonetheless, after taking the quiz the second time with modified answers, I realized that simple measures can go a long way. Taking the quiz twice made a huge impression, since I gained a new perspective of the significance of individual behaviors. Tweaking just a few behaviors during the quizzes substantially reduced my carbon footprint, which is an astounding discovery. The quizzes, overall, were helpful because they changed my thoughts on what I do, and made me question certain actions. I began asking myself “Do I really need to drive to all of these places?” and “Why don’t I recycle more?” and “How can I save

You will use the EPA’s household emissions calculator to quantitatively identify three to five everyday products or practices that contribute most to your footprint and identify measurable solutions to each. That is, you will estimate savings of both carbon emissions and money that can be achieved via the solutions. In the study questions, reflect upon your results and relate them to themes covered in Contemporary Environmental Issues.

Minding your carbon footprint does not involve never driving a car, boat, or anything that involves gas again; it just means limiting it. Earth naturally releases carbon dioxide into the ground which help keep the it warm. Natural CO2 plays a large role in many key biological processes, like photosynthesis, which helps plants create oxygen for us

Not only does it not bother me because the fuel usage doesn’t cost me very much, it also doesn’t take a full tank for me to make the trip. Due to this I don’t have to fill up right away I can go several places around town without needing to refuel, which saves me money. The opposite was true when I would travel to Des Moines from my home town, I would almost instantly have to fill up once I completed the trip, costing me more money and using a greater amount of fuel. When it comes to the amount of carbon dioxide emissions that I was putting out, that is something that I have never personally thought about. I never considered if I was putting a lot of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere from my gas usage, as stated before I really cared more about how much money it was costing me above all else. I would like to think that I don’t contribute to much harm to the environment from my carbon dioxide emissions, because I don’t feel like I drive many places compared to most people. There are people that I know that constantly are driving places, and sometimes those trips are

The World Wide Fund for Nature or WWF for short has worked at reducing our carbon footprint for over 45 years. Even since 1985, the World Wildlife Fund Network has invested over $1.165 billion in more than 11,000 projects. According to the WWF website, their mission is to conserve nature which they are actively doing in 100 countries with 1.2 million members in the United States and close to 5 million globally. There are several ways that everyone can do their part in supporting WWF. Supporters can donate money, adopt a species, or take action and directly help conserve our environment. I am going to discuss WWF’s cause and importance, how they are working to conserve nature, and how all of you can help support the cause.

But what is a carbon footprint? Basically, carbon footprints are defined as the total amount of greenhouse gasses that are produced when it comes to supporting human activities (and which are expressed in equivalent tons of carbon dioxide) (What is a carbon footprint?). Driving a car, heating one's house, even buying

In the age of commodities and consumerism, the U.S has emerged as one of the leading over-consumers in the world. Overconsumption is a catastrophe, as humans exploit more than the environment can sustainably provide. People consume water, energy and minerals on a daily basis at a rate that is depleting the earth’s life-sustaining systems. Americans make up to 4.5% of the world’s population and consume more than 20% of its energy (WPB). The lifestyle and culture exhibited by Americans are unsustainable resulting in significant problems that add to the issue of global warming, species extinction, and accumulation of toxic wastes. Part of the consumption is linked to the high population. Whereas the U.S accounts for 4.5% of the 7.1 billion population of the planet, the relative consumption of every individual account for the largest consumption rate in the world thus leading to environmental problems such as air and water pollution. An analysis of the relative consumption rate in the U.S indicates that the U.S population is associated with heavy levels of consumption that accelerate the rapid depletion of resources.

This essay reviews my personal carbon footprint and discusses ways to manage it and reduce some of the biggest areas of my resource consumption. The footprint calculator that I used required that I answer a series of questions about my consumption habits, and based on the answers I provided, showed the impact of my lifestyle on the planet. The footprint calculator uses data for selected countries, based on National Footprint Accounts. The online calculator asked questions to determine how to distribute the ecological footprint into different categories based on the country's average consumption profile. In addition to calculating the amount of carbon a person is responsible for through their daily activities, the calculator also estimated a total ecological footprint to represent the amount of land and sea area required to provide the resources a person needs and to absorb their carbon emissions.

In order to be an integral part in saving the Earth’s environment and ensuring resources for future generations, the way individuals live needs to change. Being fortunate enough to reside in one of the nation’s most developed countries, I wanted to make sure the way I have been living has been meeting the standards set by sustainable living. Using the overall environmental footprint provided by Global Footprint Network, I was able to pinpoint the areas in my life that needed to improve in order for me to be more sustainable. I chose to use this Footprint calculator because it gives you a breakdown on how many resources from the planet are needed in order to provide for your living standards. Once you have input the information, the calculator provides a general ecological footprint explanation and gives real case scenarios in which you can do to reduce it. The results for my footprint were as follows: If everyone were to live the way I do, we would need 5.3 planet earths to provide enough resources. It would take 23.6 global acres of land for energy production, which would emit 23.6 tons of carbon dioxide, and the biggest impacts on my personal footprint included 36 percent of services, 21 percent food and 19 percent mobility.

According to water footprint studies, three classes of water use exists, namely, blue water which refers to the volume of surface and groundwater consumed in the manufacture of a product, green water which refers to the volume of consumption of rainwater excluding any runoffs and grey water is polluted water and by definition is the amount of freshwater needed to assimilate the load of pollutants given natural background concentrations and existing ambient water quality standards (Hoekstra et al 2011). The understanding of water footprint will eventually lead behavioral changes which will in turn ensure sustainable water use.

In order to reduce the ecological impact of Macquarie University’s Arts Department the ecological footprinting tool is used to highlight problem areas and provide clear information on usage. By using this footprinting tool and related academic literature seven potential strategies have been identified.

Two main causes are burning fossil fuels and driving our cars. According to a NASA earth observatory web page, “fossil fuel burning (coal, oil and gas) releases about 6 billion metric tons per year.” On the EPA web site, it is stated that most of the emissions of greenhouse gases, “about 82%, are from burning fossil fuels to generate electricity and power our cars.” As I said before, driving our cars also is a large cause. For example, Ecobridge states that “Twenty percent of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions comes from the burning of gasoline in internal-combustion engines of cars and light trucks.” So a fair amount of the emissions is from driving your car.