Calculate one score for your carbon footprint and one score for your ecological footprint from the sites listed below or another you have located that has a calculator and provides a score you can compare.
- Carbon Footprint site:
- Climatepath (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. – The calculator appears as #2 across the top third of the page. Click on the “calculate your footprint” link and a simple calculator function drops down on the right hand side of the page. Be sure to record your total footprint in tons before leaving the page, as well as any comparison figures.
- Ecological Footprint sites (choose one):
Next, post to the Discussion Board:
- How do your carbon and ecological footprint scores compare to the averages for the U.S., China, and Europe?
- You can find these figures about U.S. averages and European averages by a simple search, or you can use these figures:
- “An average American’s carbon footprint exceeds 20 tons, which is an astonishing amount. If the CO2emissions we exhale were made into a solid mass of carbon, we would need 40 trucks – i.e., 1540 tons of carbon, which is 5 times more than a Frenchman and an unimaginable 20 times more than a person that lives in India.” (downloaded 6/2016 from factspy.net (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.)
- “The per capita emissions in China increased by 9% in 2011 to reach 7.2 tons per person, only a fraction lower than the EU average of 7.5 tons.” (downloaded 6/2016 from: the guardian.com (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.)
- You can find these figures about U.S. averages and European averages by a simple search, or you can use these figures:
- How does your carbon footprint compare to your ecological footprint for the overall score? Do you see a consistent trend, either high or low, in comparison to the U.S. average? Do you see a marked disparity from one of your scores to the other?
- Which do you think is a more accurate representation of your energy consumption and greenhouse gas production? Why?
- Did you find things that you could do to reduce your scores? What are these things? Do you think you will keep up these efforts in the next few years?
