Take action to reduce your carbon footprint

Tara Holland, a lecturer in the Department of Geography and the School of Environmental Science, challenged her class to take two actions to reduce their carbon footprint. Here's how they plan to help save our environment.

Transportation

For the time being, I would be going out less due to the virus outbreak so that would reduce carbon footprint by cutting down transportation. Also, I can reduce my consumption rates as my family and I would be eating out less and would not be purchasing non-essential items.

Personally, I am a big fan of UBER (car-ride sharing) because I do not normally drive and I travel a lot considering that I am an international student. By even reducing my use of UBER and switch to public transportation is proven effective to reduce the carbon emissions. Next step I can do is to get on flights less by travelling with buses which means I need to avoid trips outside Canada.

My carbon footprint is about nine metric tons. The main elements of this are flights and car. Two things that I am willing to do is to use more public transport and drive less. I usually use my car for transportation but it is a big source of carbon footprint. I will try to frequently use public transit.

Food

Try to eat less meat. It was one of my resolutions for this year so I'm going to try my best to keep it and it shouldn't be that hard for me since I am vegetarian once a week anyways for religion purposes. It will definitely help the environment because it will significantly reduce GHG and, added bonus, improve my health.

My family and I have already started taking steps towards reducing our carbon footprint. More recently, we have been plant based for over three months, which we know to be helpful to the environment as well as or own health!  

To me, the most shocking thing from my carbon footprint calculation was that food was my main contributor. Before this, I didn't really consider it but now I feel like I should reduce my meat consumption and go for other alternatives like plant-based items. It's good for the world and who knows? maybe it could also improve my health!

Fashion

I will buy less "fast fashion" Ex: clothes from stores like H&M that I'll wear a few times and rarely wear again.

In my house, we are very strict no waste and purchase, for the most part, bio-degradable or recyclable materials - my sister and I have even made homemade reusable produce and shopping bags!