Carbon Footprint Paper 3
Carbon Footprint Paper I chose to do my carbon footprint through http://coolclimate.berkeley.edu. This website provided me with an action plan on ways to reduce tons of CO2/year. Although with that said, I was surprised with the result which showed that we are doing 23.8% better than the average household in my area within the same income level.
Our travel added up to be 1.9 tons of CO2/year which turned out to be 88.5% better than the average household. Our housing on the other hand came out to be 15 tons of CO2/year, making it 10.5% worse than the average household. Our food totaled up to be 10.7 CO2/year, making it 9.3% worse than the average household. Our shopping/spending totaled to 12.1 tons of CO2/year, making it 35.6% worse than the average household. Information used to obtain these numbers included our electric and gas bills. Other sources included cell phone bill, gas (fuel) receipts, and credit cards statements. This website is very insightful and provides suggestions that one can use to build an action plan. I was provided with at least 38 suggested steps that we as a family can take. There were a few that unfortunately cannot be implemented. One being purchasing green electricity, in the town that we live in, there is only one electric provider for those who reside in city limits. In this area we don’t have a choice but to use this specific electric provider. On the other hand, we have chosen 5 steps to take to begin our journey to saving in CO2/year. A few suggestions we have chosen include, line-dry clothing, printing double sided, turning off lights, maintaining our vehicles more, and turning down the thermostat in the winter. These steps combined can begin to save 1.39 tons in CO2/year. We already have energy efficient appliances and electronics in the household. Other steps that we have decided to implement include finding ways to reduce our shopping. This is a hard area to work on but by reducing or even removing unnecessary services will
Our travel added up to be 1.9 tons of CO2/year which turned out to be 88.5% better than the average household. Our housing on the other hand came out to be 15 tons of CO2/year, making it 10.5% worse than the average household. Our food totaled up to be 10.7 CO2/year, making it 9.3% worse than the average household. Our shopping/spending totaled to 12.1 tons of CO2/year, making it 35.6% worse than the average household. Information used to obtain these numbers included our electric and gas bills. Other sources included cell phone bill, gas (fuel) receipts, and credit cards statements. This website is very insightful and provides suggestions that one can use to build an action plan. I was provided with at least 38 suggested steps that we as a family can take. There were a few that unfortunately cannot be implemented. One being purchasing green electricity, in the town that we live in, there is only one electric provider for those who reside in city limits. In this area we don’t have a choice but to use this specific electric provider. On the other hand, we have chosen 5 steps to take to begin our journey to saving in CO2/year. A few suggestions we have chosen include, line-dry clothing, printing double sided, turning off lights, maintaining our vehicles more, and turning down the thermostat in the winter. These steps combined can begin to save 1.39 tons in CO2/year. We already have energy efficient appliances and electronics in the household. Other steps that we have decided to implement include finding ways to reduce our shopping. This is a hard area to work on but by reducing or even removing unnecessary services will
References: http://coolclimate.berkeley.edu/uscalc