My Footprint * Blog 7

Well, if everyone lived my lifestyle, supposedly we would need 5.66 Earths. That can’t be a good thing.

I am hesitant to fully believe in the statistics of this quiz, only because as of right now I can only do so much. I was slightly above the global average in Carbon Footprint and Food Footprint, but I was slightly below in Housing and more than half under in Goods and Services.

I am not surprised that my Carbon Footprint is higher than the global average. It’s not that I don’t carpool because my teammates and I do it very often; it’s because I am a student athlete and we travel more often than regular students. We bus to all away games that vary in distance from Miami to Atlanta. We also fly to schools in Tennessee and next year to New York.

One of the sections in Reduce Your Footprint under the Carbon Footprint category talks about making a home more energy efficient. Well, I live with four other people and none of us own the townhouse we live in; therefore, it is nearly impossible to replace the windows and appliances, for example, with more energy efficient alternatives. All I can say right now is that when I finally do buy a home in the distant future, that I can do my best to make it as energy efficient as possible.

I don’t really have a problem with any of the Food Footprint suggestions except for the “plant your own garden” idea. It definitely is a great idea and would be a great way to save money, but having a garden is against the Home Owner’s Association rules in Copper Oaks. They wouldn’t like it.

As I said before, I am doing well in the latter two categories. I was semi-surprised that my Goods and Services Footprint stat wasn’t higher. I pretty much only recycle when I am on campus so when that question came up, I said that I didn’t recycle at all basically. It is something that my roommates and I can work on. All we have to do is get a bin. Lord knows we have quite a few bottles and cans that fill up our trash that could be recycled.