For my third Genius Hour project, I tried to find ways to reduce my carbon footprint. I did a lot of research, and I found that there are a lot of things you wouldn’t expect to have an effect on carbon footprint. For example, eating meat can increase your carbon footprint significantly, which was surprising because I was under the impression hat meat is natural and does not pollute, however this is wrong. Transportation and resources, plus the methane gases emitted from cows lead to this being a large pollutant. Lightbulbs, transportation, and plastic have also been cited as heavy carbon emitters.
I think this project has given me a lot of insight into what I am doing to harm the planet, and what I can change to have a more positive effect on it. Here’s the list I came up with:
-Turn off lightbulbs when not in the room
-Turn off AC when not in the room
-Eat less meat and dairy
-Use public transportation or non-fossil fuel transportation
-Minimize plastic usage
-Dispose of plastics properly
-Reduce, reuse, and recycle
-Take shorter showers
All of these tips can significantly reduce your carbon footprint if properly employed, and the idea of sharing this information with the community is hoping that they also can implement these tips into their own lives.
Thanks for reading,
Amir