Purpose:

To heighten awareness of the ecological impacts of personal consumption and mass production. Think of a carbon ‘footprint’ as our impact on the planet as we walk across the earth. In low-tech, agrarian societies, the footprint may be small, people may rely on little more than resources locally available, the elements (soil, sun, rain, labor …), and their wits for survival (hoping their government isn’t selling off their resource base to multinational corporations). In industrialized settings, the chains of production and consumption are global, and most of us don’t have to think much about where the things we consume came from. Even if we want to, it can be hard to track down sources and quantify resources and energy consumed in the entire process. Watch Annie Leonard’s 20-minute film Story of Stuff to orient yourself.

We live in a society with a political economy that is inextricably connected to the rest of the world. The US population, with 4.5% of the world’s people, uses 25-30% of the world’s natural resources. Critics, who are skeptical of how that statistic is used, counter that the US economy’s productivity makes up for that discrepancy—in other words, it is 4-5 times more productive, largely through resource intensive manufacturing. Your job here is more focused on personal consumption: I would like each of you to take some practice, habit, behavior, etc., in which you engage, and examine its carbon ‘footprint.’ What are the consequences of your consumption? And what feasible alternatives might exist to manage or reduce it?

The parts of the paper include:

• Identify (your idea) / justify (explain why you chose it) what you are proposing. Reducing gas consumption, composting biodegradable waste, addressing water or electricity use, etc. Sometimes these are hypothetical, because changes take to play out (e.g., a student once substituted raising rabbits versus chickens). It depends in part on how soon you start and what you’re proposing. It doesn’t have to be big, it just has to speak clearly to the assignment and your efforts to understand carbon footprints, how they impact resources, and how they can be measured and reduced.
• Describe the focus of your inquiry, and discuss its environmental/carbon impact. Discuss it in the terms used for such subjects (in other words, in understanding carbon footprints), whether that be measurement in calories, pounds/tons of CO₂, etc. (one measures energy, the other waste). This is pretty fundamental to showing an understanding of a carbon footprint—how to measure it.
• Describe any changes you are undertaking—at least for a period of time—to impact your carbon footprint. In some detail. If you make some change, first describe current practice. Then you should have a rationale and a clear and detailed description of what you propose to chang, and how. If you’re simply proposing it (this happens in a compressed time frame, after all), you need to think that all through.
• Examine/analyze (using source material of a high quality) what you discovered/expect to find.
• In the process, show an understanding of what a ‘footprint’ is, and how it is calculated.
• You will also need to assess the impact of your change—current practice/habit compared to new practice/habit. This doesn’t have to be a big change (e.g., purchasing an electric car). It could be quite small, because the idea is to understand what the footprint concept is all about, and how changes can affect it. So you could choose something you do in the kitchen, in the garage, at work, at play, etc. You will need to:
• Keep a journal to document/process your work/thinking/experience. Report on your findings, and extrapolate to the general population—not everyone, but for instance parents with infants in a given year, or whatever the population that might be affected by a change in its consumptive habits. Maybe some household members didn’t ‘buy in’ and are even annoyed. It happens.

Resources:

• Obviously, do some reading on carbon footprints, and how they are calculated (provide a list—for instance, electricity produced by wind has a lower carbon footprint than the same produced by burning coal). Compile a list of your sources as you go to save time when you’re finalizing your paper and citing them.
• Information/research specific to what you’re examining—it could be your daily commute, switching from driving to walking, carpooling, bicycling, it could be changing meat consumption (eating less beef, raising free-range chickens, etc.). It could be understanding the carbon footprint of being an online student (thinking about electricity, computers and their life cycles, savings in transportation, paper/printing, waste produced [especially when upgrading]), etc. Be creative, it will sustain you.

Elements to be evaluated:

• Demonstration of effort (intellectual and otherwise); 25 points
• Demonstration of understanding of the carbon footprint concept (of the point of the assignment and the application of your project to the concept); 20 points
• Quality of source material (at least five sources of high quality, properly cited at the end in a reference section, and in the body of the paper [use APA]. Use .com sites sparingly and with purpose; 20 points
• Thoughtful use of supporting evidence (primary and secondary—primary could include notes you’ve taken on [for instance] family members’ reactions to your project and how it might affect them); 20 points
• Writing (Grammar, organization, journal of at least 500 words); 15 points

A.I. policy applies to this and all assignments—use it to write your paper at your own peril.

100  pts possible, due December 14 in Canvas.