I feel community when I’m sitting in the botanic gardens: the quiet rustle of the trees, the ducks quacking in the stream, and people leisurely walking by. This space is a retreat from the bustle of this college town. There’s a lookout point in the garden that I love sitting at, besides my usual sit spot, and looking straight out at the town makes me realize that I now am a Dunedin resident. Studying abroad doesn’t feel real at times, but I come to my senses when I realize I’m about 10,000 miles from my loved ones. Speaking of being 10,000 miles from home, I took three flights to get to Dunedin, totaling about 2.09 metric tons of carbon dioxide. A project I would love to undertake with the correct budget and manpower is to insulate the houses in Dunedin properly. A phenomenon I’ve noticed while talking to many local and international students here is that their house is not properly insulated, making it too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter. While the summers and winters are not as extreme as, say, in Boston, the lack of insulation means there is still a good amount of carbon dioxide being wasted to heat or cool a house that cannot maintain a comfortable temperature. According to Climate Action Wales, a properly insulated house can save up to 900 kilograms of carbon dioxide per year, which is about one metric ton. If two houses were made to be more insulated, then the carbon cost of my flights would be offset within two years. However, Dunedin obviously has more than houses, so if all the houses in the city were properly insulated, the carbon offset would be much higher.