CARBON FOOTPRINT

Nowadays people are very tended on materialistic lifestyle, while not thinking about the consequences that this lifestyle can leave. Unfortuantelly we all have a huge impact on carbon emissions just by using resources like - food, consumption, transportation, and household energy.

The carbon footprint is the total amount of greenhouse gases (including carbon dioxide and methane) that are generated by our actions.

The average carbon footprint for a person in the United States is 16 tons, one of the highest rates in the world. Globally, the average carbon footprint is closer to 4 tons. To have the best chance of avoiding a 2℃ rise in global temperatures, the average global carbon footprint per year needs to drop to under 2 tons by 2050.

Lowering individual carbon footprints from 16 tons to 2 tons is not something easy but by making small changes to our every day life actions, like eating less meat, taking fewer connecting flights and line drying our clothes, we can start making a big difference.

Also in our project “ Turn your habbits green “, we got the chance to calculate our own carbon footprint by following the website which was suggested the project organizatorsfootprintcalculator.org

Most of the questions were about: how often do you eat animal - based products, housing type, electricity, trash, transportation.

After answering the questions participants were asked to divide in a row from lowest number to biggest number by using fingers to tell how many planets would it take if everyone lived like you. After being devided we all told our numbers outloud and the we began discussion about how we all can improve our everyday habits by reducing our carbon emissions. We came to conclusion on how we can decrease our emissions by:

Switching off the lights

Taking the stairs

Taking shorter showers

Unpluging the electronics that are not in use

Switching to LED bulbs

Shopping Second Hand

Reducing the food waste

Using reusable items instead of single use

Buying local food

Traveling by using public transpotation, bicycle, by foot

And these were only some of ideas that can be used to improve our carbon footprint, after the worshop the participants gained more knowledge about how to elaborate our daily lives with more sufficient and green habits.