(5 votes, average: 4.80 out of 5)
Loading ...
By Alex Lento, ‘10, LifeStyle Section Editor
CALCULATE YOUR CARBON FOOTPRINT
So…my footprint is huge. Now what?
There are plenty of ways to reduce or offset your carbon footprint. You can take the easy way out and donate money to the Nature Conservancy. On the Nature Conservancy website, after you have calculated now your carbon footprint, it suggests a donation you can make to offset it. Your money will go towards planting trees and protecting land. Something more practical, especially for high school students, is to make small changes in your everyday life. Most of these changes actually end up saving you money! I know everyone’s tired of hearing this, but make the switch to a reusable water bottle. Tons of stores carry them in cool designs. If you must bring a Propel or Ice Mountain bottle to school every day, at least recycle it. Another easy way to reduce your footprint is to use a little less energy every day. Everyone knows shutting your lights saves energy, but did you know that unplugging your cell phone chargers or other devices when you aren’t using them also saves energy? It’s just as easy to unplug your charger when you unplug your phone and would take you no more than one extra second each day.
When you calculated your own footprint, it provided your personal breakdown of where your carbon footprint comes from, the U.S. average breakdown is shown below. If for you it’s a lot of “Food & Diet”, tell your parents to make an attempt to buy organic foods. If it’s transportation, make an effort to carpool more, or try to combine errands and cut out extra driving. Being “green” is easy. Start small. It all adds up.
Photo by www.nature.org.
Facebook
Twitter
YouTube
Thanks for the great tips!
Man-made “global warming” is a fallacy. There is an increasingly large movement against this alarmist school of thought and it’s a shame that there is not more outspoken criticism of this myth–or advocacy of the idea of what’s really happening: the planet is cooling.
On the contrary Brian,
There is strong evidence to suggest that the planet is in fact “warming” up. Since the mid 20th century our planet’s temperature has aggrandized. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has observed much of this activity and have many conclusions to its source.
Brian, I agree. In his novel “State of Fear,” Micheal Crichton discusses how the earth actually went through a “little ice age” in the 18th and into the 19th century. In Mr. Black’s European History class, we discussed how a little ice age during the 14th century lead to a malthusian stalemate in which the food supply could not keep up with the food supply. But I digress. In “State of Fear,” Crichton tells of how the world has always been kept in a constant fear of something in order to control the world. The Cold War brought widespread fears of nuclear warfare and the end of the world, Nazi Germany threatened the sovreignty of the world, and many find that the global warming myth is soley a way to control the masses by directing their focus on such a terror. The idea that the world is warming is soley due to the effects of the little ice age that we are just now leaving. There is no substantial data to back up the wild and erroneous claims of global warming. In fact, a satellite meant to record carbon levels in the atmosphere in the years to come mysteriously crashed after an “equipment malfunction.” Coincidence? I think not.
Food supply cannot keep up with the population*
According to the E.P.A. (a branch of the United States government):
“For over the past 200 years, the burning of fossil fuels, such as coal and oil, and deforestation has caused the concentrations of heat-trapping “greenhouse gases” to increase significantly in our atmosphere. These gases prevent heat from escaping to space, somewhat like the glass panels of a greenhouse.
Greenhouse gases are necessary to life as we know it, because they keep the planet’s surface warmer than it otherwise would be. But, as the concentrations of these gases continue to increase in the atmosphere, the Earth’s temperature is climbing above past levels. According to NOAA and NASA data, the Earth’s average surface temperature has increased by about 1.2 to 1.4ºF in the last 100 years. The eight warmest years on record (since 1850) have all occurred since 1998, with the warmest year being 2005. Most of the warming in recent decades is very likely the result of human activities. Other aspects of the climate are also changing such as rainfall patterns, snow and ice cover, and sea level.
If greenhouse gases continue to increase, climate models predict that the average temperature at the Earth’s surface could increase from 3.2 to 7.2ºF above 1990 levels by the end of this century. Scientists are certain that human activities are changing the composition of the atmosphere, and that increasing the concentration of greenhouse gases will change the planet’s climate.”
So, I do believe there is proof that climate change is not a myth. I’m not suggesting that we take cars off the road or halt all activities which emit greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, I’m simply suggesting we reduce them. If you choose not to do anything to protect our planet, that is your personal choice. However, according to U.S. government scientists, global warming does exist. So, for those of you who do care, there are suggestions above.
While the earth’s temperature may be rising, it does not signify a major departure from what should be “normal” for the earth. A severe lack of reliable data makes distinguishing between unnatural warming and the return from a “little ice age” impossible to differentiate. Most of the warming in the past 100 years happened before the 1940’s, an age where carbon dioxide levels were not nearly as high as they are now. Likewise, in the 1940’s to the 1970’s, when these levels rose dramatically, the temperature actually dropped. Satellites and weather balloons in the high atmosphere have shown little to no increase in temperature, and this is the area where scientists predicted the warming to occur first. Again, the melting of the ice caps is a trend that has been occuring for thousands of years. Also, temperature recordings taken on earth are unreliable due to the “urban heat island” effect, faulty recording stations, and scientists with an agenda to confirm this myth. Examined closely, the vast majority of “scientific data” that “proves” global warming is unreliable and incomplete.
This said, the global warming myth is soley an effort by elites to control the public through a constant stream of fear. The effects of Global Warming, while not proven in a single instance, are meant to be scare tactics to which the general populace submits. Look at the data and see for yourself. Do not accept “facts” so casually. Only when we finally see what has happened to us and realize that global warming is solely a means of oppression will we be able to live free of this marauding specter.
No matter which way the temperature is going, the environment has been thrown out of wack. Though man may not be solely to blame, based on correlation between increases in solar radiation storms and natural disasters, we should do all we can to prevent the situation from being exacerbated. After all we are overdue for a mass extinction.
And I would also like to add that though “State of Fear” by Micheal Crichton is based on many facts, it is in fact a work of fiction. Is that like saying the Divinci Code can be used as evidence too??
Lindsay,
Your claims are completely unvalidated and represent a misguided and uninformed opinion. Moreover, “State of Fear” and “Davinci Code” are in fact very dissimilar. Crichton cites specific scientific evidence and studies to back up his claims. In fact, he includes a complete bibliography which I invite you to research for yourself. These two works are very different, and when one makes an informed decision, one will see that global warming is a fallacy.
The technical term for what we conisder to be ‘global warming’ is ‘climate change.’ Global warming is the Earth’s surface temperature increasing, whereas climate change involves global warming as well at effect of greenhouse gases. Very simply, higher temperatures by themselves aren’t going to make much of a difference, but the larger changes in precipitation patterns and a raise in sea level will. Global warming is just a section of climate change and is a fallacy on it’s own. Climate change, however, is broader and takes in a greater scope of issues. It’s an important distinction.