United States: 1B Interactive Simulations

Environment   Aug 2, 2017 by nathanieljoffe

1. Ecological Footprint Calculator -Link

1. What part of your ecological footprint most surprised you?

I was surprised by how much transportation contributed to the size of my carbon footprint, accounting for about a quarter of it.

2. How did your footprint compare to your city’s average (if available) and your country’s average?

My carbon footprint was 11.3 tons, which was less than my country’s average of 20 tons, and less than my city’s average of 46.8 tons.

3. Find a location with a smaller carbon footprint from yours, within your own country if possible. What is different about this community from your own? What can you learn from this?

Los Angeles has a smaller carbon footprint that San Francisco. I think this is because it has a higher population density, and there are more shared resources and public transportation is used more often. I realize that shared resources mean a smaller carbon footprint.

4. What parts of your footprint do you feel is possible to reduce? What parts don’t?

I feel like I can get food that is more locally grown, because I live close to the Central Valley in California, where a lot of different crops are grown. I feel like it would be hard to use public transportation, because I live in a suburban area, and there aren’t that many options for public transportation.

5.Read this article about large companies, individual actions, and climate change: http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/08/just-90-companies-are-blame-most-climate-change-carbon-accountant-says. What do you think are the limits and possibilities in affecting climate change by the reduction of individual footprints

I think that a lot of greenhouse gas emissions are industrial, and an average citizen can’t really change how much greenhouse gases they emit, but if everyone did small things to reduce their emissions, it could really make a difference.

2. Climate Challenge - Link

1. What strategy did you take in Climate Challenge? Was it effective in reducing emissions?

I tried to not do anything that had anything under ⅓ approval, and I tried to make sure to always decrease the amount of carbon emissions, which was most important.

2. What did you think of how the strategy cards represented resources? Do you think some of the strategies/policies would have different impacts than the ones shown in the game?

I think that the cards represented resources well, and I think the impacts would mostly be the same as in the game. I noticed that there was higher approval on cards that took less extreme action.

3. How did you approach international negotiations? Was it better to lead by example, or attempt to encourage other nations by investing in their green economies?

I found it was better to lead by example, because that earned me very high approval with other countries, which made them more likely to set a goal to decrease their carbon emissions.

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