Earth day is an interesting concept. It’s like the climate change version of new years, except it exists since the 1970’s and it’s mostly observed by schools and universities with tired teachers and PR personell hanging up posters and making statements on their websites. Thus, it tends to fall flat.
As someone who works in a science lab, most of what I do concerning Earth Day ideals is climate related.
Over the past year some friends and I have been doing a self-experiment. We used the Aworld app to calculate our carbon footprint and recorded our results and answers. Then, also using the app we began tracking our habits because we wanted to see who could reduce their carbon footprint the most. I came second at 0.3 tons because I wasn’t as competitive as the friend who changed her diet and decided to ride a bike and walk everywhere. I was however competitive enough to recycle everything and reduce my meat and soy intake. I walked to most places and used trains instead of planes when I needed to travel further.
This was my carbon footprint at the start:
This was my carbon footprint at the end:
Some things that may be a bit messy concerning the experiment:
- Not everyone needed to travel the same amount
- All the data was basically a self evaluation
- Peer pressure probably made us do better
Result/Evaluation:
Carbon footprints are reduceable without making astronomical differences to your everyday life (unless you want to) it’s just making some different choices and making them into a habit, like Taco Tuesday if Taco Tuesday was walking to work/school. Our mentality towards climate change changed a lot as well. We started to be more aware of our actions and spent long nights researching random topics like what foods had what environmental impact or if biodegradable lab gloves were actually safe. Basically it became a giant discussion.
Going forward:
We’re not going to continue the self-experiment, but we will keep habit tracking. In the following year, we have a series of small at-home experiments planned. Some of them will be climate related, but most will be simple curiosity queries.
Comments (1)
What a delightful post you have made starlight, like all your other’s it’s clear to see your ion towards our environment and towards this planet, it’s very commendable.
Interesting experiment, maybe next Earth day you could do a follow up - if you continue of course.
I would like to see what this community has to challenge you, but even if they don’t, I think you should take pride in this post.
Great read, thanks for posting.