Imagine a brightly colored school bus with windows lined perfectly from one end to the other. Afterward, pack it with children like sardines in a can. Now stack eight of those on top of each other. And then try to have a family of five pick it all up. Impossible right?
It’s no surprise that holding about 17 tons is impossible. However, if we can’t bear the weight, how is our planet supposed to?
Now, I’m not talking about the weight of the physical school buses though. I am referring to the weight of my family’s carbon footprint. According to Nature Conservancy Carbon Calculator, those 17 are tons are equivalent to how much carbon dioxide (CO2) my family produces in a single year.
Carbon dioxide is such a common greenhouse gas (a gas that contributes to global warming by reflecting heat back onto earth) that my family’s 17 tons are only 34% worse than the average.
Now, if we truly care about those children on the school bus and the future generation, it is necessary to make a change. By altering a few daily habits or contributing to green companies, we can help avoid drought, severe weather conditions, flooding, and more.
Starting with my family’s biggest addition to our carbon footprint, our home, which contributes 49 tons of CO2 per year. Yes, I know we need lights to see and therefore we need electricity. However, I don’t know about you, but I surely don’t need to see my entire bedroom when I’m not in the house! An act as simple as shutting off the lights while leaving a room could reduce emissions by .15 pounds per hour according to Boston University.
Another one of our huge contributions of 32 tons of CO2 per year comes from travel. With my sister and I flying back and forth between home and college, it’s time to rethink how we can communicate with one another. Even though there is something very special about seeing someone in person, facetime calls can be very beneficial. They not only reduce emissions but can also save you from squishing next to that smelly man in the tiny airplane seats.
I clearly cannot make all these changes myself though, so I decided to have a little interview (or so-called lesson) with my father. I started by asking him how he felt about our family’s 17-ton contribution to the environment. With a slightly embarrassed look, he answered: “I’m not proud of my individual contributions; however, I mitigate my contributions by investing in green companies” (Aronin).
That’s when my little lesson turned into a lesson from him (per usual). He discussed many popular companies, but the company Invenergy really stood out. According to Invenergy, they managed to offset 11.2 million tons of CO2 in 2017. Those 11.2 million tons comes out to be about 658,823 school buses.
So, yes, there are many ways in which we can look internally and reduce our own family’s emissions. However, it’s just as important to search externally for ways to reduce many family’s emissions.
In short, before carelessly leaving all of your bedroom lights on, think about how you can turn these yellow school buses into “green” ones.
Works Cited:
Aronin, Jeff. Personal interview. 4 November 2018.
“Carbon Calculator.” The Nature Conservancy, http://www.nature.org/en-us/get-involved/how-to-help/consider-your-impact/carbon-calculator/.
“Turn Off The Lights.” Boston University Sustainability, http://www.bu.edu/sustainability/what-you-can-do/ten-sustainable-actions/turn-off-the-lights/.
(The photograph was posted to Flickr by Niels Epting and can be found here. Licensing to this photograph can be found here. )
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