Lowering OUR CArbon Emissions.

     

In my STEAM class, Fuel Unit 3 we learned to do things like balance chemicals, and do things like graph inequalities. WE also learned about the negative impacts carbon emissions/pollution have on our Earth. WE were then asked to make a white paper in order to educate people on how to reduce their carbon emissions. Here is my final result:

https://issuu.com/agarcia-gcelabschool/docs/fuel_white_paper_ap_




Last time I checked extreme amounts of Carbon emission above 350 ppm where a bit of a problem. Too many carbon emissions and other greenhouse gases bring many negative effects. One of the biggest ones being global warming as the greenhouse gases are warming up which is not good news for us as the trees and plants can’t purify it quick enough. Other effects include, poor air quality, rising sea levels, disruption of the ecological environment. I personally calculated my own carbon emissions on a footprint calculator and was surprised to find that I emitted a total of 6.3 tonnes of carbon every year! That’s equal to burning 6,942 pounds of coal and is only sequestered by 8.2 acres of forest. If everyone lived like me that means we would need 2.9 earths to support this lifestyle. Luckily there are ways you can help reduce carbon emissions. Ways such as:





Using other modes of transportation other than cars.





Using your car emits about 271 g of Carbon Dioxide per kilometer and simply taking a bus can reduce this to only 101 g per kilometer since they fit more people and last longer. Even better than the bus though is using a bike. While it may not be completely carbon emission free, due to the materials needed to make one and food you need in order to have energy to bike one, it still one of the best options. By biking you only really emit 21 g of carbon dioxide per kilometer which is about 10 times less than if you were to drive. And according to a few studies led by the University of California cycling can cut a city's emissions by up to 10%! Although this could be a challenge for people in countries where either public transportation may not be available in certain areas or for people who work in rural areas and other places that are too far to bike or take public transportation to.







Recycling





Recycling may be one of the easiest ways to reduce your carbon footprint. Recycling something like plastic may very well cut emissions by a lot as recycling plastic so it can be reused will cut demand for new plastic to be made. Overall recycling garbage that can be recycled can cut emissions up to 25%! Although in our country we are privileged enough to have systems in place which allows us to recycle as I know in other countries they do not have such systems which end up making lots of landfills in their very own country and trash to be just trash.







Changing diet to more locally grown and healthy foods




Changing our diets to more locally produced food can really help lower our emissions. Usually locally grown food requires less transport which is where most of the carbon emissions of food come from. So if we were to eat food that didn’t take long distances of transport to get to our store we can easily cut down the emissions. Also by eating less meat we can reduce it as the process of producing meats like beef can be high in carbon emissions. I do understand though that some people are not fortunate enough to have such types of foods available to them as they might be too expensive or not available in their local store.






Luckily there are collective actions we can take together to reduce our carbon emissions. One of them being a big one like changing our policies and another one being small and more community based such as switching to renewable energy by starting something like a community. solar panel garden. We will focus on the easiest one which is:




Community solar panels





If individually switching to solar renewable energy produces 80% less carbon emissions than fossil fuels imagine how much the emission would be reduced if the whole community did it. It would involve turning an empty land lot into a solar panel “farm” of which you and your neighbors could use instead of putting them up on your own roofs. Then everyone would pay a certain amount to use the energy produced by the solar panels. This can save you money and everyone in your neighborhood would be able to benefit from this.



On that note if we all took it upon us to adjust our lifestyle just a bit and start doing any of these actions we could reduce our carbon footprint and find it in our heart to help our mother Earth just a bit.




Sources:




Patel, Prachi. “Four Strategies to Tackle the Carbon Footprint of Plastic.” Anthropocene, anthropocenemagazine.org/2019/05/reducing-the-carbon-footprint-of-plastic-is-doable-but-not-easy/


ECF, ecf.com/news-and-events/news/how-much-co2-does-cycling-really-save.


“How Cycling Can Save Cities Money and Emissions.” Institute for Transportation and Development Policy, 22 Feb. 2016, www.itdp.org/2015/11/12/how-cycling-can-save-cities-money-and-emissions/.


Carbon Footprint Ltd. Recycling, www.carbonfootprint.com/recycling.html.


“Eat Your Way to a Smaller Carbon Footprint.” Terrapass, 24 June 2015, www.terrapass.com/eat-your-way-to-a-smaller-carbon-footprint.