1. Conserving for a Better Future Personal Ecological Impact
Team Name
Sierra Cootes
Emily Owens
December 14th, 2015 1

2. Table of Contents Introduction / Executive Summary
All About Emily and Sierra
Team personal uses of natural resources
Water usage: Us vs. State Vs. World
personal footprint comparison
Energy consumption Us Vs. CA Vs. World
8 Changes
How and why we should change
Proposal for Personal Change
Summary/ Conclusion
References

3. Who are Emily and Sierra?
Describe
19-20 years of age
Work full time as well as full time student
Child care and a manager for an olive oil company.
Activities: Watching television, doing homework, charging electronics, lights (heat lamp)
Assets: ipad, laptop, cell phone, television, lights.
Recycling as much as we can!
We want things as cheap as we can get them
Consequences: Most of the products we purchase are packaged or imported.

4. Personal Uses of Natural Resources
Air travel is limited because we rarely travel outside of our city
Vehicle emissions: We only travel from work or school and back home. No major commutes.
Public transit: We don’t use public transit. We use private vehicles.
Home energy: We use a lot of lights causing a high emission.

5. Breakdown of california emission causes
Housing
Transportation
Team Average/ person
10 metric tons of emissions/ yr
2.89 metric tons of emissions/ yr
State Average/ person
13 metric tons of emissions/ yr
15.3 metric tons of emissions/ yr

6. Personal Use of Resources: Water Usage
Sierra:
Emily:
Highest uses of water in CA

7. Personal usage of water: Us Vs. World
The United States and other developed countries use more than 300 liters of water a day.
The lesser developed countries uses less than 15 liters of water a day.

8. Personal Footprint, Consumption, Impact
Sierra produces roughly 19.5 CO2e metric tons, where Emily produces roughly 25 CO2e metric tons a year
The national average is 17 CO2e metric tons a year
Sierra and her household uses roughly 229 gallons of water, where Emily and hers uses 148 gallons

9. Energy consumption Us Vs. CA Vs. World
Average kwh/month
Average therm/ month

10. Changes – Why, Who, What, Where and When Changes should / could be made
We can all make changes in our own homes that can be beneficial for both ourselves and our environments.
Lowering our emission output can be done by reducing the amount of electricity used.
WHEN: The goal is to reduce energy needs whenever possible
WHERE: In your home/ office/ school
If everyone does their part in lowering energy consumption then we will slowly start to see better conditions.
Easiest way to reduce CO2 emissions is by reducing fossil fuel consumption
use your car less, ride your bike!

11. How and why we should change
Why should you converve?
Saves you money
spend less money on; water, gas, electric, etc.
Improves national security
Rely less on foreign bodies
The sources we currently use are limited.
The fossil fuels we use are very limited. We can’t make more!
How can we conserve?
Switch to energy efficient appliances
Keep them clean and maintenanced
Turn off lights when not in use
Use efficient bulbs
Cover bare floors
Keep thermostat close to outside temp.

12. Proposal for Personal Change
Simple in home solutions like these can help minimize waste production and can cut corners with reducing excess energy consumption, as well as saving money.
Purchasing dark/ blackout curtains
Getting the rest of the household on board with air drying their clothes
Stop using plastic water bottles and replace it with a filter and reusable bottles
On average, 40% of your utility bill goes to heating and cooling
In my household, we lowered our yearly bill by 30% by having regular maintenance, cleaning and blackout curtains.

13. Summary Conclusions
In our personal families we use a lot of electricity and water.
We found: In some cases to maintain our quality of life we do use more energy than we should.
We do on occasion use more energy than the national and state average.
A take away,
go home and look around and see what and where you can cut back on
don't leave things running when they're not in use
perform routine maintenance checks on
All in all, be aware of how you are consuming energy.

14. References
"Be Water Smart - Bleck & Bleck Architects." Bleck Bleck Architects RSS. 25 Sept Web. 11 Dec
"California Residential Natural Gas Consumption." Residential Natural Gas Consumption. California Energy Commision, Web. 7 Dec
"How to Reduce Your Energy Bill with No Cost or Sacrifice." Lifehacker. Web. 11 Dec
"Overview of Greenhouse Gases." Carbon Dioxide Emissions. Web. 11 Dec
Stevens, Matt. Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, 4 Nov Web. 9 Dec
Streeter, A.K. "We Use How Much Water? Scary Water Footprints, Country by Country." TreeHugger. Tree Hugger, 4 June Web. 7 Dec
"World Bank Group." World Bank Group. World Bank Group, Web. 11 Dec
"2014 Average Monthly Bill- Residential." IEA.gov. Web. 3 Dec <