Assigment #5 Carbon footprint

Carbon footprint is the calculation of how many tons of carbon dioxide a person is realising to atmosphere. In a few words, how much are you contributing to the green house effect that causes global warming. Measuring your carbon footprint relates to sustainability because once you know how much carbon you are actually realeasing, you would try to change it. You can think you are not contaminating because you are not littering, but you are not doing anything either to helpe the world. However contaminating not only covers littering, but it aswell covers using too much hot water, not having energy efficient ligth bulbs or electronic items in general, and even eating a lot of red meats.
In my case I do not really eat red meat (chicken is meat but not read) or use a car actually I rather walk than use the bus, but I do use an airplane a lot and i don't really recycle that much. My carbon footprint is 17 tons of CO2, which is below of the national average which is 27, but it isnt good either. What I could do to reduce my carbon footprint is to have a reciclying bin in my dorm and make sure my roomates recicle too. I cannot stop using the airplane because I need to go home, but I can do little things like having short showers and put the termostate to a temperature that is close to the one outside so the air conditioner doesnt have to use more energy. It was really shocking because I thougth that I was not contaminating but I found out that I am, now I will have to work on reducing my carbon footprint.