United States: 1b Interactive Simulations

Environment   Aug 4, 2017 by naomiichiriu

1. Ecological Footprint Calculator - Link

1. What part of your ecological footprint most surprised you?  I believe that the fact that I used up a large amount of energy by having electricity in my home which contributed to 47% of the pollution I made surprised me the most because I didn’t think that I used that much energy, but it harmed our ecosystem and planet greatly.
2. How did your footprint compare to your city’s average and your country’s average? The average ecological footprint for Los Altos and the US is 8.6 hectares, and my footprint was 6.6 global hectares. My footprint was below average because all of the appliances in my house are high efficiency appliances, and that decreased my shelter gha.
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? My carbon footprint was 11.6 tonnes. Oregon's is 9.49. Since I travel more often than most people, my hours flying is impacting my carbon footprint. I know now that I can reduce some of my carbon footprint by flying less and also making sure I don’t use that much electricity.
   
4. What parts of your footprint do you feel is possible to reduce? What parts don’t? Since I used a lot of energy in my home, I feel like it is possible to use less energy in my house by making sure I leave lights off if I am not in the room or making sure I am not using too much lights when I am in one place. 5.
5. Read this article about large companies, individual actions, and climate change: http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/08/just-90-com... What do you think are the limits and possibilities in affecting climate change by the reduction of individual footprints? We can reduce our carbon footprint by a lot, but we cannot completely eliminate it. Some of the necessities that we need like clean water and food will cause pollution, but we can cut down the about of unnecessary things in life we use, such as too much packaging. Also, a limit of how much we reduce our carbon footprint is that some people don't have electricity in this world, so they may burn fossil fuels that will impact our world because they don't have some resources that others have.

2. Climate Challenge - Link

1. What strategy did you take in Climate Challenge? Was it effective in reducing emissions?I decided to take choices that reduced the C02 emissions and was sort of popular with the rest of the world. It was very effective, but it ended up with running out of food and water because I did not chose to import food because it emitted too much C02. Because of the choices I made, I was not very popular. 
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 the strategy cards represented resources pretty well, but some of the strategies might have had different impacts like how sometimes the popularity meter might not be accurate because you could always change their minds or you could campaign differently to make the public agree with you.
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 thought it was better to encourage the nations I was popular with and investing in their green economies. This worked, because if you are more popular with that nation, they say that they would work to reduce the emissions more willingly than the nations that did not like you and they helped.

3. Water Footprint Calculator -This tool allows students to calculate their water footprint, based on their lifestyle and the part of the world they live in. Tell students to pick a city that is comparable to theirs (only a few cities are included).1.

1. Were you surprised by how much water you consumed? I consumed 710 cubic meters of water per year, and I was surprised when I got my results because I expected that I would match the global average. 
2.  How did your footprint compare to your country’s and the world's average? (You will need to research this.) The world’s average water footprint is 1243 cubic meters, and mine is 710 cubic meters. The country’s average water footprint is 2842 m3, which was significantly higher than mine.
3.  What parts of your footprint do you feel is possible to reduce? What parts don’t? I feel like I can reduce how much meat I eat because the majority of my water footprint was because of meat. I don't feel like I can reduce how much water I drink because it is very necessary to my life. 

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