Backyard Action Hero Toyota Backyard Action Hero Guidebook 2017 | Page 15

fuels are burned, they let off carbon dioxide. Reducing the electricity and gas used in your home will reduce that carbon footprint. You can also plant broad-leafed trees to offset your carbon footprint. Trees convert CO2 into the oxygen we breathe. Planting trees can help pull greenhouse gases out of the air and, over time, will help keep the Arctic cool. A tree you plant today can pull CO2 out of the air for hundreds of years! Hunter is a real life Backyard Action Hero! He also visited Churchill, Manitoba with Polar Bears International, our polar bear conservation partner, to see and study polar bears in the wild. When he returned from Canada, he took action to help polar bears. Hunter convinced the Louisville Zoo Youth Board to raise funds for a new bike rack to quadruple bike parking for the Zoo in an effort to reduce carbon emissions from cars. Hunter also participates in “Cycle for Change” — a public awareness campaign to inspire communities to bicycle commute — and “Bike Commute Challenge.” With other zoos across the country, Hunter and Louisville Zoo team members put away their car keys and biked in a nationwide effort to reduce carbon emissions. Louisville Zoo participants logged 1092.7 miles commuting to and from work in the month of May 2015 alone! By not driving, all of the participants together eliminated over 7840 pounds of CO2 emissions on behalf of polar bear conservation.