Belvedere Times

Stamp It Out

Ian Brennan & Michael Stone, Environmentalists

 Global warming is an ever growing problem in the world today, the topic is routinely raised in all societies. The alarming speed at which ice caps are melting ensures that the topic is not the only thing rising.

Of course, we cannot hope to rely on our current leaders to put anything concrete into place that could prevent catastrophic outcomes.  It appears as if they hardly care; they’ll be dead before any lasting effects become apparent.  It was along this train of thought that a group of five Transition Year students came to the conclusion that children might actually be the future.

As a result, a survey was done in Elements Loyola and it turned out that although the students seemed to know a great deal about recycling and how to go about conserving energy, they had little or no idea what a carbon footprint was. 

 A staggering 68% of students in Elements Aylmer did not know what a carbon footprint was.

It is actually quite straightforward; a carbon footprint is the amount of greenhouse gases (in metric tons) we produce ourselves, or as a household, in one year.  There are some very startling facts about the carbon footprint that everyone should be made aware of.

• The average footprint per person in Ireland is 10.4
• The average footprint per person for developed countries is 11.0
• The worldwide target to end climate change is 2.0

This leaves us a long way off our goal and hopefully, through information like this, we will set people on the right path.