- I discovered that if everyone in the world lived life the way I lived it, we would need 5.2 Earths to provide enough resources. This pretty close to the average of the United States of 5 Earths needed to provide enough resources. This isn’t really a positive result, but at least I know that I am not exponentially worse than the rest of the United States. Honestly I was kind of surprised that I needed so many planets to sustain my way of life.
- The three sections that I maximized were meat consumption, waste/recycling habits and transportation. All of these maximizations had similar effects of amount of planets needed to sustain that style of living. Meat consumption increased the number of planets needed the least amount, from the original 5.2 to 7.5 planets. Both waste/recycling habits and transportation increased the planets needed to almost eight! These increases are understandable. I think, as an individual, I would choose to eat less meat, and buy more groceries locally. I also feel like I could reduce my carbon footprint by taking public transportation instead of always driving to school. And I should take more opportunities to carpool as well. I could also, instead of just recycling, try to also buy products made from recycled materials.
- As a society, I believe that we need to take initiative and focus on recycling more and buying more items made from recycled material. Also, to decrease our carbon footprint, we should try to take public transportation when we can, instead of driving places. The planet would also benefit from trying to purchase produce and meat that are locally grown. Also, if we made more of an effort to recycle (which is the most obvious solution), we would be able to decrease our footprint significantly! These small changes could culminate into such a decrease of our carbon footprint.
All good points!