Whyville Carbon Calculator

CARBON CALCULATOR

Use the slider bars below to estimate your weekly participation in each activity and then review your carbon footprint in the box on the right. Just like in real life, every living creature has a carbon footprint that is greater than zero. Your baseline footprint in Whyville is 80 lbs/week.

TRANSPORTATION :

	Solo car drives	0 5 10 15 20+
Driving your car by yourself creates more greenhouse gases than any other activity in Whyville or in real life.
	Carpool rides	0 5 10 15 20+
On the average, Whyvillians take 3 other citizens in their cars. Carpooling creates about the same amount of greenhouse gas as driving alone, but in a carpool, your share of the carbon is lower!
	Taxi rides	0 5 10 15 20+
A taxi ride creates a bit less greenhouse gas than a solo car drive. Why? Sergio's taxi, like many taxi fleets, runs on natural gas which has lower greenhouse gas emissions.
	Bus rides	0 25 50 75 100 125 150 175 200+
A bus ride is like a carpool trip, but instead of sharing the carbon footprint with a few friends or family, you're sharing it with up to 40 other people. It's tough to find a more carbon-friendly way to travel!
	Warp Wagon trips	0 5 10 15 20+
The Warp Wagon is an ecological wonder machine, transporting you across time and space with minimal greenhouse gas output. How do we do it, you might ask? City Hall keeps it a super-secret!

WHAT YOU USE :

	Friend Finder calls	0 10 20 30 40 50+
The Friend Finder runs on electricity. Generating electricity by the most common methods -- burning coal and gas in power plants -- causes the production of lots of greenhouse gases. Other ways of making electricity -- nuclear power plants and hydroelectric or even wind power -- produce much less greenhouse gas.
	Face parts created/bought	0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40+
Akbar needs electricity to produce his face parts. Generating electricity by the most common methods -- burning coal and gas in power plants -- causes the production of lots of greenhouse gas emissions. Other ways of making electricity -- nuclear power plants and hydroelectric or even wind power -- produce much less greenhouse gas.
	Projectiles bought	0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40+
Electricity is needed to produce projectiles. Generating electricity by the most common methods -- burning coal and gas in power plants -- causes the production of lots of greenhouse gases. Other ways of making electricity -- nuclear power plants and hydroelectric or even wind power -- produce much less greenhouse gas.
	Scion decals bought	0 2 4 6 8 10+
Club Scion requires electricity to produce decals. Generating electricity by the most common methods -- burning coal and gas in power plants -- causes the production of lots of greenhouse gas emissions. Other ways of making electricity -- nuclear power plants and hydroelectric or even wind power -- produce much less greenhouse gas.

WHAT YOU EAT :

	WhyEat tickets used	0 2000 4000 6000 8000 10000 12000 14000+
Making food produces surprising amounts of greenhouse gas. Think of all the machines on farms and in factories used in the production of your food. Then, think of all the trucks used to bring your food to you.

RECYCLING & TRADING :

	Face parts donated	0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40+
Donating face parts to Grandma so they can be recycled for use by others means less greenhouse gas is produced.
	Items traded	0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40+
Trading parts at the Trading Post instead of buying new parts is a great way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Trading instead of buying new means less gas is made in the production of new parts.
	Items recycled in the recycling game	0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200+
Recycling bottles, cans, and paper means fewer new bottles, cans, and paper products need to be made from scratch. Recycling something produces less than half the greenhouse gas than producing a new item from raw materials.
	Trash items picked up after storm	0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100+
Picking up trash for recycling reduces greenhouse gases. Recycling something produces less than half the greenhouse gas than producing a new item from raw materials.

Now that you've used the Whyville Carbon Calculator, post your thoughts in the BBS below.

Which activities have the greatest effect on your Carbon Footprint and why?

Why does eating increase your Carbon Footprint? Think about all the steps that go into bringing food to your table.

Why do recycling and trading act to reduce your Carbon Footprint.

In addition to recycling and trading, what can we do as citizens, both in Whyville and in the real world, to reduce our Carbon Footprint?

Climate Center

Instructions

The Whyville Climate Center is sponsored by Penguin Young Readers Group, the publisher of Al Gore's young adult "An Inconvenient Truth: The Crisis of Global Warming" (Viking Children's Books/Rodale Books).