I am carpooling home for break in an effort to save time, save gas, and reduce vehicle emissions.

I have recently decided to eat less meat. Meat is a very resource-intensive product to produce and the process can emit copious amounts of greenhouse gases. By eating less meat, I am decreasing the demand for meat.

Yesterday, I came back to campus and in order to save time, I carpooled with a friend. By doing this, we saved gas and cut down on emitting greenhouse gases.

This week, while I am home, I plan on seeing a lot of my friends. I will do my best to carpool as much as I can with them in order to use less gas and emit less carbon dioxide into the air. Carpooling can help decrease the amount of toxic emissions released into the air from vehicles.

I have noticed that the dining hall dishes are pretty small. I think this is important because it could potentially decrease the amount of food waste. When you use smaller portions, you are more likely to finish your meal, rather than using a large dish and having lots of leftovers or worse, throwing it all away. When I am at the dining hall, I try to use smaller portions to ensure that I eat everything and if I am still hungry, I go back and get seconds. Today my challenge is to leave no food waste when I eat lunch.

For this week, I decided to research geothermal energy. A geothermal energy system uses "long loops of fluid buried below ground to exchange heat with the surrounding soil" (https://learn.eartheasy.com/articles/is-geothermal-energy-right-for-you/). In the winter, heat from the soil can be brought up to your home and in the summer, heat from your home can be deposited in the soil; this keeps your home at a steady temperature all year. While there are concerns that this could disrupt ecosystems (because the systems are built underground), geothermal energy systems can save money and emit substantially less greenhouse gases.

I spent around an hour diving into what foods are forest friendly and which are not.