footprints: answers

26: global warming

teachers’ notes

societal actions

Phasing out logging of old growth forests would reduce carbon emissions, while population growth, increased consumption, wars and even international travel increase carbon emissions.

personal actions

Turning off lights, walking, cycling, catching public transport and using solar power reduce carbon emissions. Buying overseas fruit and vegies and driving everywhere increase carbon emissions.

There are lots of other ways to reduce carbon emissions.

Any reduction in electricity consumption will reduce carbon emissions, for example:

• turning televisions, microwaves and computers off at the wall
• rugging up rather turning on a heater
• choosing appliances that are more energy efficient
• designing homes that will stay warmer in winter and cooler in summer

A mud-brick house with a passive solar design. There are no exposed windows on the west side of this house.

Similarly, any reduction in the dependence on fossil-fuelled private transport will reduce carbon emissions, not just walking or cycling, but also:

• car pooling
• buying local produce
• growing your own fruit and vegies

Students will be able to come up with many of their own examples.

additional activities

1. Al Gore’s documentary An inconvenient truth is a great resource for this topic, not the least because it is very visual. I have shown it to a wide variety of students, including aboriginal students with ESL backgrounds. I introduce the documentary as being like a university lecture with lots of big words but with a really important story to tell. My sense is that students clearly get the message.
2. Relevant newspaper articles, text references and websites are readily available, making student research relatively easy. Students can research the effects of global warming in Australia or overseas. They can research topics such as drought, extreme weather, rising sea levels, endangered species and so forth. Products of this research could include posters, PowerPoint presentations, class talks and “action plans.”
3. Students should note any evidence of climate change in areas they visit. For example, during a rafting trip down the Mitta River a year or two after the devastating February 2007 wildfires, our group noticed terrible erosion (pictured below) that resulted from the effects of heavy rain on terrain that had lost root protection from living plants.

An eroded gully feeding into the Mitta River. The re-growth on the gum trees is just discernible.

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