This year in my AP Environmental Class we were assigned a project to create an “Eco Dram House.” We had an unlimited budget to create a house that could power itself by renewable energy sources and possible even create excess energy to power neighbors or other appliances. Creating the house, was very difficult and it really gave me a closer perspective on how much energy a typical house uses. I forgot about the energy that every little device uses such as hair dryers, iHomes, and DVD players, let alone large appliances such as dishwashers, laundry machines, and kitchen appliances. It was a very cool project that allowed me to be creative but practical at the same time.

Hi guys! My name is Aziz and i think that you should greatly reduce CO2 emissions to lower the environmental impact .There are various solutions as to use fluorescent bulbs or reduce the garbage for week and maybe in the future to use cleaner forms of energy such as buying solar panels.

Solar panels provide steady, reliable energy, but only on days when the sun is out. A person who relies mostly on solar power in their homes also needs another source when there is NO sun. Wind energy works well to provide clean energy.

Hi, I’m Abigail from the United States and I recently found that my family produces a lot of carbon dioxide emissions at my house, even though it is lower than the average for the United States. Some things that we are planning to do to reduce carbon dioxide emissions is to switch all of our incandescent light bulbs to fluorescent light bulbs, because we have 90 light bulbs within our house and most of them are on for at least an hour a day. Another thing that we are trying to do is to reduce our trash per a week (since it’s at 13 gallons per a week), because recycling recyclable objects is crucial to helping the Earth.

Although solar panels only play a part in generating electricity for a typical American home, I will still prefer to install them on my house roof because I believe that even a small change for the better will be a very helpful favor towards the Earth. I also will do my best to buy a house near my school/local transit options as that may save me from driving there and producing much more carbon dioxide than necessary. I would also prefer to be as close as possible to my local grocery store as locally grown food would be free of all the carbon dioxide produced from shipping other foods that are not locally grown to the required selling places. In short, I wish to have solar panels installed on my house’s roof and a house that is close to my grocery store/school/local transit options.

Hello, my name is Louis Lam and I am a senior at Oakland High School. Recently, I have realized that family footprint contributes greatly to carbon emission. In order to conserve energy and lessen the amount of Co2 emitted, we should speak to our families. Taking the time to educate our families for a mere minute can cause a huge difference. A few ways to lower carbon emission can be turning off lights when not used, and going out more.

Hello my name is April and i live in Oakland, California. I realized that my home is the thing that contributes the most to my carbon footprint. i didn’t realize it that much, but now I have. I know that at my house we use the television too much, even almost the whole day. We never try to turn it off, and aslo the lights. My brothers love playing with them and they intend to leave them on most of the day. But since I calculated my total footprint, I have helped my family by turning off the T.V. whenever is not needed. By calculating your total footprint, it teaches you or informs you on what to do to switch it around. Everyone should live a better and healthier life. And most of all we need to save the Earth.

Hi my name is Sara and I live in Houston Texas. I noticed one of the things that contributed most to my carbon footprint was the amount of electricity I use. I was surprised but now that i think about it, my family does leave the TV on almost 12 hours a day, and we tend to leave our lights on a lot. Obviously there are simple solutions like turn off the lights when not in use or turn off the tv when no one is watching, but this got me to thinking about a bigger picture. How can we turn our houses greener overall? Is there a way to make our houses so that even if we do leave the lights on it is not hurting the enviornment or wasting electricity? Here is a link below about solar panels, which i think would help reduce our carbon footprints, because the panels get energy from the son, not from generators poluting the air.

HI my name is Jonathan and I live in the USA. After using the carbon footprint calculator I realized there are many ways to reduce the amount of carbon released. Using the heater and air conditioning less in the winter and summer could save much more energy. turning off the lights and other appliances when not in use can also save a lot of energy over time.

One major way my family and i could reduce our carbon footprint is by using the air conditioning less in the summer and the heater less in the winter. If we opened windows in the summer to cool the house naturally and slept with extra blankets in the winter, this would reduce our carbon footprint by a substancial amount. Also, we could lower our footprint by using less plastic water bottles and start using only reusable ones. The same could also be done with grocery bags.