Planetary Footprint of a Purdue Student - Lauren Baugh, Joshua Liming, William Pierce (Group 23)4/14/2018 For this blog post, we thought we would approach it a slightly different way. Rather than combining all our ideas into one single, overarching interpretation, we wanted to share our individual stories. Over the past few days, we have been collecting our trash and carrying it with us to make us feel our “footprint”. Below, we share our experiences and thoughts about our personal impact on the environment as well as an infographic we created to encourage Purdue students, like yourselves, to decrease your planetary footprint. Josh’s Story: I think it's obvious I affect the planet in almost every action I take. The food I consume, light I use, every piece of trash I create has a cost associated with it. Some of those effects are tangible; for example, collecting the trash over the past couple of days has shown me that I do a pretty good job of minimizing physical waste. Others, like CO2 emissions, are harder to count. As a Purdue student I interact with the environment every single day, both directly and indirectly. I’m studying to be a Civil Engineer, so I have to think about the environmental impact of buildings and structures. Indirectly, I think a lot of students harm the environment, through no fault of their own. Just think about how much energy it must cost to power every single building here on campus considering we have a power plant dedicated solely for Purdue. We carried trash throughout the week and I didn’t come anywhere close to filling the bag. I just don’t create that much trash. I use recyclable or reusable bottles, I recycle almost all paper and avoid buying extra things I don’t need. But, overall, my impact is large. I am partially responsible for all the CO2 that is released from the power plant, as I need that power to light my dorm. I use a lot of water, on average, my showers last 20 minutes, which translates to about 40 gallons total. Even more water goes into making my food, vegetables or meat. I also drive a ton. Just the past weekend I drove about 220 miles! That alone created about .11 metric tons of CO2 emissions. I am honestly not sure how to improve the planet. Beyond educating and informing those around me I don’t think I can do much as one person. I can try reducing the electricity I use, the water I use, and changing the types of foods I eat, but if a lot of other people don’t change my effort would be meaningless. I love the planet and if there is a single thing I could change to decrease my footprint I would do it, but there isn’t a magical solution. I take much more from the Earth than I will ever give back, but I try not to harm the environment directly. If I could drive a more fuel efficient car, I would, but money is tight. I recycle when I can and reduce waste but it can be hard. It's a lot of “I want to, but I can’t”. Lauren's Story: During the past week, I took trash tracking to a new level, and for three days I carried my trash around campus with me. It was a challenge for sure, but eye-opening in the sense of actually “seeing my planetary footprint”. Over the course of the challenge, I was more aware of my eating choices, knowing that I would have to carry whatever I did not eat around with me for another 3 days. As a Purdue student, our team felt the best way to explore our footprint on campus was to personally track it. I feel that I negatively affect the planet by my choices, and there is plenty of room for improvement. For example, I often study in my room, and leave the TV on even when I am not watching it. Changing behaviors such as these and replacing them with utilizing the library, where lighting is used in a communal manner,conserving energy with this simple choice. Us as Purdue students interact with the environment in a variety of ways, both intentionally and unintentionally. During the winter months, when we crank up our thermostat in the dorms, without even thinking about it, or take a 30 minute scorching hot shower, just because we can. The decisions we make as college students are often motivated by ‘the path of least resistance’, and regarding healthy environmental choices, we tend to push them to the back-burner and stick with the easy options. My personal planetary footprint is quite large, and is in desperate need of an intervention. My calculated “Earth Overshoot Day” is March 25th, meaning my water and energy usage is very unsustainable and it is vital for me to change my behaviors. I can help improve the state of the planet by not only altering my own personal behaviors, but sharing my knowledge and concerns with other students. Living in the dorms are convenient, but the negative environmental impacts incurred by residents often go unnoticed. In order to create positive environmental change on Purdue’s campus, and in turn a healthier planet, we need to educate ourselves about the harm we are doing, and how to rectify our wrongdoings. The personal relationship I feel towards Earth has shifted during my time in POL 327, and throughout our “trash bag challenge” because I have learned about ways in which my everyday choices are impacting our planet, and how many of these actions cannot be erased. I feel empowered to make a change in my lifestyle in order to provide a better planet and life for my children. I look forward to spending time playing outside with my children, going to see the Grand Canyon, and taking them to see my alma mater, but in order to make that future a reality, we need to come together as a campus, and not only preserve Purdue, but the planet. Will's Story: Through our group’s trash collection exercise, I found that I don’t seem to generate very much waste, and most of what I do generate, I recycle. However, there is a deeper story here. Since I live in the dorms and live on a meal plan, much of my planetary footprint is hidden from me. I do not have to pay for the exact amount of electricity or the exact amount of water I use or even the amount and types of food I eat, but I can still create estimates, which I did for our “Track Your Trash” assignment. With all of these planetary costs hidden, it is hard to get a real appreciation for just how big a single student’s footprint is. With this difficulty in mind, I try to be a good citizen nonetheless. But, this notion of a ‘good citizen’ must be better defined. Pulling from the Global Warming’s Six Americas, I feel I am a concerned with respect to planet Earth (2). I generally try to recycle all I can, take only 5 minutes showers, and create efficient algorithms as a computer scientist. But, doing one’s individual duty will not save the planet. Hidden planetary costs of everyday life are the real contributor to one’s planetary footprint therefore more drastic measures are necessary to make a dent in the current planetary plight. As discussed in class, individualization of actions is not the only way to contribute to saving to the environment and decreasing planetary footprints and it is certainly not the best way (1). The most effective ways are to recruit other people to join the cause and then recruit even more people. These ways include contacting elected officials, campaigning for future officials, joining and participating in organizations such as Greenpeace, and writing articles to reach a wider audience. Finally, knowing these more drastic actions I can take, what do I do? I do believe that Earth is a natural Eden that should be preserved for future generations to enjoy and for its uniqueness of life in our little part of the universe. As I feel many people in this class will agree, I should do more to convince others, but this takes time and energy, which can be hard to spare, especially with busy college life. However, time is of the essence with environmental degradation, so if not now, then when? As for my actual actions, I do vote for officials I believe in, but I’ve yet to actively campaign for candidates I believe in because I think this type of response is too lax to save the environment and needs to be strengthened. Summary: The results of our “trash bag challenge” were informative on different scales for each of us, however we did find common struggles that we all faced. Beyond the trash aspect, by digging deeper into our energy and water consumption, we discovered that we don’t really realize how much we are using in the moment, but realize after it is too late. References (1) Michael F. Maniates, "Individualization: Plant a tree, buy a bike, save the world?", Global Environmental Politics 1(3) (2001): 31-52. (2) “Global Warming’s Six Americas” Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. Retrieved from “http://climatecommunication.yale.edu/about/projects/global-warmings-six-americas/ (3) “Global Footprint Network” What is Your Ecological Footprint? http://www.footprintcalculator.org/ (4) “Life Cycle Studies : Pencils” WorldWatch Institute http://www.worldwatch.org/node/6422
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AuthorsThese blog posts are written by students in the POL 327 Spring 2017 class. Archives |