Preview

Science Carbon Footprint Research Paper

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
650 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Science Carbon Footprint Research Paper
Chemistry

A carbon footprint is a measure of the effect you have on the climate in terms of the amount of greenhouse gases you produce. Based on my daily behavior, my carbon footprint is about 57.41, and I would need about 3.65 Earths to keep my behavior. My score isn 't that bad because everyone else 's scores were higher, however, my score could always be better. The area that I am below the U.S. average reflects positively off of me living in a small apartment building, turning off appliances when not in use, and recycling. "About three-quarters of greenhouse gas emissions that are attributed to humans come from burning fossil fuels. We burn fossil fuels — nonrenewable energy sources — when we operate vehicles, heat our homes and even use electricity, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration." There are many ways to help save the Earth. All you have to do is cut back on using electricity, heat, driving a car, start recycling and reusing. When you don’t recycle, you waste the energy that is used making and transporting new items, and increase your greenhouse gas emissions, contributing to climate change. Nonetheless, recycling and reusing allows less energy to go into the process of creating new items, and less fossil fuels being burned to affect the Earth 's atmosphere. Instead of one person driving a car everyday, carpooling and using public transportation may also reduce gas emissions. Your ecological footprint is important because it represents the amount of earth 's resources and spaces needed to support your everyday life. If every person needs too much, Earth 's resources will be scarce. Experts say, "The existence of global overshoot suggests that human society will need to make significant changes to ‘business as usual’ if it wants to create a sustainable future." Without changes of America 's behavior, we will not have a future to look foward to. An ecological footprint is again, the measure of human demands on earth 's



Bibliography: (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.carbonfootprint.com/warming.html Planet Green. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://curiosity.discovery.com/question/how-carbon-emissions-affect-environment LaMeaux, E. C. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://life.gaiam.com/article/how-does-your-carbon-footprint-impact-climate-change Unknown. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.footprintnetwork.org/pt/index.php/GFN/page/world_footprint/

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    In Section 1, you learned about the natural environment, how it is impacted by humans, and how that impact is measured. Now, you'll apply what you learned.…

    • 640 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    But now, even people who pay little attention to the environment also cannot recognize the increasingly serious consequences due to global warming. Everyone has heard so much about all the problems of ecological environment. Especially when we have very different lifestyles, our carbon emissions are very different and we are also creating problems of ecological environment are very different. Time has passed when people thought that recycling is just enough, and that they have done their responsibilities when people throw their bottles on recycle bin but it is…

    • 497 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    SCI203 Phase 3 Lab Report

    • 522 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Carbon dioxide is naturally present in the atmosphere as part of the Earth 's carbon cycle. Yet human-related emissions are responsible for the increase in CO2 emissions. The use of electricity accounts for 37% of total U.S. emissions, while transportation 31%, industry accounts for 15%, residential and commercial 10%, and other non-fossil fuel combustion 6%. That is 99% of the total globe greenhouse gas emissions. Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in the United States increased by about 7% between 1990 and 2013. (EPA, 2015) Not leaving out pollution also a contributor of increases in anthropogenic CO2. These things are the cause of the earth heating up, or global warming. Trees and plants help soak up the CO2 in the atmosphere but with the tearing down of trees to build industry buildings, residential and commercial buildings there are fewer trees and plants to take in CO2 for photosynthesis.…

    • 522 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    ITECH1005 Tut01

    • 369 Words
    • 3 Pages

    What do you understand by carbon footprint and how can IT play a role in reducing…

    • 369 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The purpose of this lab is to learn more about how connected you are to the ecosystems and biosphere that you inhabit. You will learn how your everyday choices contribute to the human impacts on our environment you’ve been learning about. Most importantly, you will learn about benefits that you can achieve by joining the increasing number of people who are making choices that reduce their environmental impact.…

    • 1198 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Com/156 Body Paragraphs

    • 843 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Recycling and waste prevention are two very important ways to help address the issues of the environment concerning climate change. Recycling is a very beneficial factor that more individuals need to exercise in order to improve the environment’s pollution, reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, and save energy and natural resources that are used to produce products from virgin materials rather than from recycled materials, which uses less energy and produces less harmful pollution. Recycling has many benefits that helps improve the earth’s conditions. Waste prevention and recycling are real ways to address these problems and begin to make a change. Recycling turns materials that would otherwise become waste into valuable resources, reducing the amount of natural resources needed to produce these same products. Collecting your used bottles, cans, and newspapers and taking them to a recycling bin or collection facility is just the first step, in a series of steps that generates a host of financial, environmental, and social returns. These benefits accrue locally as well as globally. Recycling protects and expands United States manufacturing jobs and increases United States competitiveness by creating more recycling jobs and facilities within the United States and producing more of our own products with recycled materials and being less dependent on outside countries and companies for these products. Recycling prevents pollution caused by the manufacturing of products from virgin materials.…

    • 843 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “In 2013, CO2 accounted for about 82% of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions from human activities” (Environmental Protection Agency).…

    • 1015 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    You can lessen the effect of carbon on humans by trying to eliminate the carbon input into the environment. Some ways of doing that would be carpooling to and from places, unplugging electronical things around the house, and simply planting trees.…

    • 314 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In 2013, 82% of human-produced greenhouse gas emissions were carbon dioxide (Nasa climate change). This resulted from the burning of fossil fuels, solid waste, trees, wood, and other chemical reactions. The biggest reason is because of the burning of fossil fuels this includes driving your car and nuclear power plants.…

    • 587 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Just by going about daily activities, a person’s carbon footprint grows considerably. Author Richard Conniff says, “Experts on greenhouse-gas emissions tell me that every time my car burns a gallon of gasoline, I am putting more than 25 pounds of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as well as a smaller amount of methane, nitrous oxide, and various other toxic gases” (Conniff 869). Even household machinery, like televisions, computers, stoves and washing machines, some of which eat up sixty percent of electricity when they are not even in use, create a gigantic amount of carbon emissions. Considering that the average American home has grown to over two thousand square feet, around thirty thousand pounds of carbon dioxide are being emitted from each household per day. Multiply the amount of carbon emissions per household by the large amount of nuclear households in the world, and it is obvious that humans are responsible for a large portion of climate change, if not the whole (Conniff).…

    • 819 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    By far, the most popular argument in support of a more eco-friendly lifestyle is the fact that it reduces waste and pollution. This is the main goal of going green and seems to be a good reason to readjust the way we live. One option to living greener is to recycle and reuse materials; this practice lowers the amount of waste you produce and in extent it places less garbage on the earth’s landfills. The use of alternative energy also helps by emitting les pollutants into the air we breathe. These pollutants are known to affect the ozone layer of the earth in a negative way and alternative fuels have been seen to emit fumes of less harmful gases. As if more of an incentive was needed, when a person pollutes and wastes less, they save themselves money by reusing old items and using cleaner fuels. It is a change that benefits the planet as well as your wallet.…

    • 1225 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Environmental Footprint

    • 772 Words
    • 4 Pages

    1. Based on your findings from the ecological footprint calculator, how many Earth’s would be needed to support the global population if everyone lived your same lifestyle? Additionally, describe the impacts on the Earth’s climate, biodiversity, and economic security if every individual in the world lived your same lifestyle and discuss why these impacts would occur.…

    • 772 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Carbon Footprint Paper 3

    • 435 Words
    • 2 Pages

    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.…

    • 435 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Affluenza Analysis

    • 842 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Conversely, our economy has been based on materialistic resource. Individuals see our environment as a small piece of importance, but they’re wrong. We entirely depend on our environment with everything we do in our daily lives. In the film “The American President’ Leo is unhappy with the environmental issues and is trying to convey his ideas to the president. Individuals who are concerned over our consumption have contributed to recycling, but the percentage of those people are about 4%. The other 96% are continuing to add to our pollution and waste of resource. To make a bigger impact on our environment more than 50% should contribute. Cars and factories play a big role in our pollution, causing Global Warming. People don’t notice the way they take advantage of transportation. Seeing people walk to a 2 min store destination is never seen, people prefer to drive their vehicles. Cutting down trees and destroying environments is not only affecting us,…

    • 842 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    I would consider food, water and transportation to be the largest components of ecological footprint in most developed countries. Many people with a decent to wealthy income abuse these components often adding to their carbon footprint. People should be more conscious of how much gas they put in to the atmosphere. People need to be more cautious about turning their cars off when unneeded and to use other forms of transportation such as walking or biking when the weather permits. Also, carpooling is another option to help reduce carbon footprint. Why take two cars when you could take one? Finally, it is important to be aware when buying a car, how much gas it uses. Some cars, like trucks for example, can be total gas guzzlers.…

    • 1552 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays