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Imagine stepping onto wet cement.
As you step, you leave a footprint that remains long after the cement has hardened. You may never have left a footprint in wet cement, but all of us leave footprints. The footprint we’re talking about here is the effect you have on the world’s resources. It is shaped by what you do, what you eat, where you go, and how you get there. You can help conserve resources by leaving as small a footprint as you can.
Your carbon footprint is the amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere as a result of your actions. For example, when you ride in a car, you add to your carbon footprint. That’s because the fumes a car’s engine emits are mostly carbon dioxide. When you walk or ride a bike, you do not add to your carbon footprint. If you take mass transit, your carbon footprint is much smaller than if you ride in a car.
The trouble with adding to your carbon footprint is that carbon dioxide traps the Sun’s heat and is the main cause of climate change. Climate change leads to changes on Earth that can cause droughts, floods, habitat loss for plants and animals, and a rise in sea level.
Carbon Footprint of a Cheeseburger...
Cars aren’t the only things that add to a carbon footprint. Practically everything does—even a cheeseburger. To figure out the carbon footprint of a cheeseburger, let’s add up the energy demands of each part:
Growing and milling the wheat for the bun
Growing the tomatoes, lettuce, and cucumbers
Pickling the cucumbers to make pickles
Growing feed for the beef cattle
Feeding the cows that provide the milk for the cheese
Preparing and freezing the meat
Storing and transporting the ingredients of the cheeseburger
Cooking the cheeseburger
Running the restaurant where you buy the cheeseburger
According to researchers in Sweden, the carbon footprint of a single cheeseburger is about eight pounds of carbon dioxide. Over the course of a year in the U.S., enough cheeseburgers are consumed to leave a carbon footprint at least as large as the footprint left by all the SUVs now on the road.
▲ Approximately 30 to 40 percent of all food gets thrown out. Where does it go? Into landfills, where it sends carbon dioxide and methane gas into the atmosphere as it decomposes. What if we could do something useful with all that food?
The average person in the United States throws out about 185 pounds of plastic every year (think soda bottles, grocery bags, straws, and scores of other objects). Where does it go? Much of it ends up in the oceans, where it harms or kills animals and transports pollutants. What if we could do something useful with all that plastic?
Maybe we can.
In January 2020, scientists at Rice University announced a process that turns carbon-based materials like food, plastic, coal, and even rubber tires to graphene, a material thought to be about 200 times stronger than steel. Adding just a small amount to plastic, concrete, and metals increases the strength of these materials significantly.
Until now, graphene has been too expensive to use this way. But a new process, called “flash graphene,” changes that. The process involves heating the carbon-based materials to about 5000°F for less than a second. In that miniscule amount of time, the non-carbon materials disappear and the carbon turns to graphene. The process is fast and cheap.
Using carbon-based materials to make graphene means less carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere. And the big winner is us.
Your Part
There are many ways that you can reduce your carbon footprint. You can use less energy, and you can also consume foods that use less energy during the production process.
▲ Compact fluorescent bulbs, or CFLs, use 75 percent less energy than standard bulbs. Plus, they last longer. Light emitting diode bulbs, or LED bulbs, use even less energy and last even longer. Talk with adults in your home about choosing CFLs or LEDs instead of standard bulbs.
▲ A/C and heat are great inventions, but a home should not be kept freezing in summer and boiling in winter. Ask adults to keep the indoor temperature at 75°F in summer and 68°F in winter.
Help move furniture away from radiators, so heat goes into a room and is not absorbed by the furniture.
What you eat has a big impact on your carbon footprint. To cut down on pollution linked to packaging and shipping food, plant a vegetable garden. Talk with adults who buy your food about choosing food that is grown locally (within 100 miles of home).
▲ Processed foods, which are frozen, canned, or packaged, carry a big carbon footprint. Eating fresh food reduces your carbon footprint. Whenever possible, choose baked potatoes instead of potato chips. Eat an apple instead of applesauce.
