Carly's Ecological Footprint

If everyone were to live like me, it would take 4.1 planet earths to provide enough resources! In a sense, I am very astonished with the amount of resources I consume, however I think about my daily life schedule and I rely on a lot of these categories to get me through my day. I do think I could become much more conscious of the amount I consume.

I rank relatively high in the goods and services categories, due to my job which requires working on a computer an average of 25 hours a week; driving to the places I need to be in a timely manner; let alone flying to my favorite destinations for vacations. I am aware of how much energy I use in a single day (due to living with four other girls and our energy bills tend to be on the higher end), although not until my planet earth count kept rising during the quiz, did I realize that maybe I should perhaps try to find a way to cut down on my energy intake. You would think that after having a couple fuses blown in our house that maybe us girls would cut back on the hair dryers, straighteners, curling irons, computers, lamps, the continuous laundry machine running. Therefore I would like to make a commitment to myself to take a minimum of at least three actions to reduce my carbon intake.

I commit myself to:

1. Turn off my laptop at night and during the day while at school, and to unplug my work computer at nights and on the weekends.

2. Bag my own groceries at the store with a reusable bag, rather than use plastic bags

3. Try to cut back on the amount of laundry, in hopes that my roommates will as well. Maybe talk to them and figure out a schedule to minimize the on-going running machines.

4. Now that it is spring, I would like to buy more fruits and veggies from local markets rather than those that have been shipped in over 200 miles away.

5. Unplug appliances in the kitchen when they are not in use. (i.e., the toaster, microwave, coffeepot)