Last week I generally focused on to use less water and the turning of the light. In week 2, I focus on the using computers and smart phones because according to our survey result people much more use these devices than cooking devices. So that, we should focus on the devices that people use excessively with electricity. For instance, after using computer we should close it completely we shouldn’t keep it in sleep mode because this consume the charge of computer and this leads to use more electricity.
Solar energy is the energy from the Sun’s radiation. Fossil fuels, like coal, gas, and oil, are produced by sunlight through photosynthesis over millions of years. Moreover, using fossil fuels can also cause pollution. Although the formation of fossil fuels depends on sunlight, solar energy comes directly from the sun. The lifetime of the Sun is quite long that there is no worry about running out of solar energy.
Solar energy exists for a long period of time. It has been used by humans for thousands of years. There are two main ways to use solar energy which are passive solar energy and active solar energy. Passive solar energy can be allowing sunlight through windows to heat a place while Conversion of sunlight to electricity is a form of active solar energy.
As we know, most of the electricity supplies in our houses are produced by burning fossil fuels which have been creating a massive and negative impact on the environment. Therefore, using Solar energy should be our main source of electricity which is neutral in its effect on the ecosystem.
The main tool to use solar energy is the solar panel which is installed on the roof of the house, which captures and reserves solar energy on batteries. Before installing, we should consider the available solar resource for your home and the size of the roof to see whether it is able to install the solar cell. Sometimes the solar panels will generate more energy than a household actually needs. But some solar panels have an advantage of storing the excess energy which can be used later.
The advantages of solar energy are the fact it is environmental-friendly energy; it also can help people to save money and is easy to be established in a house. The disadvantages can be the high initial cost to install it and it is climate and water selective.
To conclude, solar energy has a lot of benefits and especially the fact that it will not produce any harmful and toxic substances as other electricity sources makes it more suitable to combat current ecological destructions we are encountering in the world. Hopefully In the near future, electricity which generated by the solar energy stabilizes more and can fulfill household daily demand.
In these days I wonder about my carbon footprint and I measured it. The result is startling me, 2.1 worlds. As you see it is too much so I will talk about what can I do to reduce this result.
In a week, we can change many simple things. First of all, if you read my first entry I have forgetting problem. As a start, I can be more awake. As a result of this, I can solve many daily problems. According to my results, my main problem is my eating habits so as a second problem I can focus on changing my meals. I can try to eat less meat. Finally, I use buses to go to a near distance and I can give up that.
As a result, if we can change simple things from our life, we can cause a big impact on our carbon footprint. You can try that at least for a week. I want to finish my entry with a significant word, You can’t see the results without experiment so try.
In my daily life, I am a forgetful person so I have too many problems with it. It can be a huge problem sometimes. However, this situation affects my ecological footprint especially. In this text, I will inform you and myself about these problems to save our world.
These problems are about mainly my oblivious lifestyle but the same problems can occur for everybody. First of all, generally, I forgot to turn off the lights and this problem has a big impact on my carbon footprint. According to Ledone, every 1KW of electricity generates 830 grams of carbon equivalents. So, it causes a big amount of CO2 emissions. Another problem is about the cooker. As you know electric cookers need too much electric for heating and sometimes I forget it open or to look at the meal and this one also causes too much problem like hunger. On the other hand, this problem rises the level of carbon footprint. Solar cooking atlas explains that a person will depend on more of 80% of fossil fuels for cooking their food, directly or indirectly by consuming electricity or gas. Lastly, at least I remember these right now, I put the same toxic materials which I used to wash my clothes or dishes two times. It affects the quality of the water and again for reuse the water a lot of energy used.
As I explained, these problems affect nature negatively so we need to beware about these and affects. I want to finalize my problems with a significant sentence, don’t forget everything you have done has a return.
CDP is a nonprofit charity project that runs the global disclosure system for companies and investors to manage their environmental impacts. The organization Is based in the United Kingdom. It aims to make environmental reporting and risk management a business norm and drive disclosure, insight and action towards a sustainable economy.
MOTIVE AND IMPACT
With the motto “You can’t manage what you don’t measure”, the organization is acting urgently to prevent dangerous climate change and environmental damage.
The main focuses are:
– achieving a thriving economy that works for people and planet in the long term
– helping investors, companies and cities on taking action to build a truly sustainable economy by measuring and understanding their environmental impact.
*Since 2002, over 6000 companies have publicly disclosed environmental information through the CDP project.
According to Wikipedia, a carbon footprint can be described as the total spreading caused by means of an individual, event, organization, or product, expressed as carbon dioxide equivalent.
There are a lot of reasons that cause to increase the carbon footprint. Our houses are one of the place where we do some activities and consume something which damage to the Earth by inceasing our carbon footprint. Even the materials we use to build our houses, the size of the house, affects the carbon footprint, also inside the house what we consume increases the carbon footprint. For example, our wastes, using of electricity, using water, heating, etc. affects the ratio of our carbon footprint. What I observe in my personal life and my physical surroundings we consume all things that we have without thinking the future. If we continue to consume like that, we won’t find anything that we need in our life. For example, in my dormitory people don’t care whether they close the tap or not. In this way, people waste the water. Also, when it comes to heating, sometimes the dormitory can be very hot and instead of reducing the heat of heater, they open the window. They do not pay attention to reduce the rate they use. In addition, when some people use coal for heating, carbon dioxide gases are emitted to nature and others use the electricity, which also increases the carbon footprint. These are more common problems about consuming something that increase the carbon footprint. I want to focus on our consuming of the water. We consume water a lot because we use it almost in everywhere but even now there is no water in some lakes due to our excessive water consumption and the number of these lakes is increasing day by day. In addition to this, we also pollute the water that we can use before polluting. For example, we dump waste into the oceans, seas. Even the toxic detergents that we use at home instead of using non-toxic detergents also contaminate water. We also consume the water by polluting it even with the small toxic detergent.
Bad eating habits are one of the most alarming problems related to ecological footprint. Meat, cheese, and eggs have the highest carbon footprint while Fruit, vegetables, beans, and nuts have much lower carbon footprints. Dairy products take massive part in our personal ecological footprint is because the dairy cattle need to feed on grass that requires lots of water exploiting the environment. The other one is the packaged food products. If the packaging is excessive, or if it’s made of materials that aren’t easily recycled, then it can cause even greater environmental problems. Personally, I eat dietary products and products at least 5 days a week. I can diminish my personal ecological footprint by eating more vegetarian food and cutting back on dairy products and packed foods. Although this protects our environment at a lower scale, it can help create awareness within my friends and widen the influence. Amir Lale/ 140120109
Households are accountable for nearly three-quarters of global carbon emissions, as these have been estimated to be accountable for around 72 % of carbon emissions on a global basis (Hertwich and Peters 2009; Wilson et al. 2013). The statics above tells us that our housing footprint is typically one of the largest sections of ecological footprint which has been creating a greater impact on the environment and I wanted to elaborate this massive issue by taking a look at the campus dormitories we live in.
The First issue is about household wastes which are thrown away everywhere inside and outside the dorms which we can easily spot. Bottles, cans, paper, and household hazardous wastes decay and damage the natural environment releasing bad and toxic odor and greenhouse gases if they are not disposed and recycled regularly.
Secondly, I focused on electricity which makes up a significant share of the household ecological footprint. The quantity of greenhouse gas emissions from our dorm’s electricity use depends on the types of fuel the power plant uses to generate the electricity and as we know, Fossil fuels are the main sources. Burning fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and natural gas are altering the earth’s climate by increasing the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and enhancing global warming.
My final point deals about water usage in the dorms. we can find broken taps and water flushing systems in some of the toilets flowing without stop creating wastage of water and resources. Detergents we often use while doing laundry actually are Toxic containing harmful chemicals which lead to negative health effects, ranging from skin and throat irritation to carcinogenicity, and negative effects on the environment.
We can see from the above texts that there are many problems and manifestations in the places we are living in which are influencing our ecological system and we must work on to improve those conditions.
Generally even if we do not notice, our actions are tend to be causes of carbon footprints. In our home, dorms or universities, we cause energy consumption indeed excessive use of energy especially electric energy.
The first problem which i observed in AGU is automatic doors. It spends lots of electric energy due to students, academicians, instructors, office workers. Even if only one person passes from these doors, they are opened and closed. So, they cause consumption of more than enough energy then increase carbon footprints.
The second problem about ecological problem is automatic dryers in toilets . Sometimes, they run spontaneously when there is no any person. It efforts to dry even if it is one person’s hand.
Another problem which leads to carbon footprint is lights which are turned on in unnecessary places in steel building and warehouse. Actually places except the common study areas and architecture studios are not open after working hours but sometimes in classes and somewhere lights are open. It is the major problem in terms of the amount of carbon footprint.
Also, if i mention about heaters, in AGU, in some places where there are no students , air conditioning, heaters are open.
In my dorm, for 24 hours in study rooms the lights and warmers are open. It is possible to say, there is a waste of energy. In addition washing machines are not closed completely. In other words, they are always plugged in.
All of these things are far away energy efficiency. They are so closed to be reasons of ecolocigal footprints. They cause to be released greenhouse gases into air.
Carbon Footprint is a measure of the environmental damage caused by human activities in terms of the amount of greenhouse gas especially carbon dioxide produced. There are some reasons about formation of ecological footprints. The first group include direct CO2 emissions from the combustion of fossil fuels, including domestic energy consumption and transport (eg cars and aircraft). The second group is a measure of indirect CO2 emissions associated with the manufacturing and ultimately degradation of the products we use from the entire life cycle.
Despite everything, we can reduce our energy consumption and change our some habits even in a short time. For the beginning we can reduce the use of disposable plastics. When we throw them after using, they will stay still plastic. For example , I used reusable bags and glass bottle instead of plastic bags and plastic bottles. Secondly, we should reduce electric energy consumption. I was aware of to turn off the lights when i saw in unnecessary places. Also, i washed the laundry after i accumulated my dirty clothes. So, there was a energy efficiency from washing machine. In addition, i searched renewable energy options like solar energy. Thirdly, i ate less meat like red meat. Consequently, the carbon emissions into the air were decreased. Additionally, i used bicycle between short distances and public transportation to decrease harmful contaminants which are released from private cars. Or maybe electric vehicles will be better instead of normal cars also. The other one which i did was to be care about food or drinks and clothes which i bought from somewhere. I avoided products which releases emissions in its manufacturing and requires long distance transportation to reduce the amount of carbon in atmosphere.
ECO EFFICIENT HOUSE 