- I require 4.9 Earths while the national average is 5. I am very close to average. It’s disappointing because I always thought my life style was fairly sustainable, as it turns out it isn’t.
- I chose to maximize Transportation, Food and Shelter. Transportation had by far the biggest impact; it pushed the Earths I required to 14.7. Food and Shelter seemed fairly close, food was 6.9 Earths and shelter was 6.6 Earths. I found these statistics surprising, I assumed that the resources that go into building a large house where more ecologically expensive, also I’m not sure if the calculator takes home heating and cooling into account, the average home takes about 500-600 gallons of oil to heat during winter, a house several times bigger than average have a much larger impact. In the future I can make an effort to live closer to where I work, living within walking distance of most of my needs should bring transportation costs near zero. I expect that lowering the heating and dressing warmer while at home should have make a sizable impact.
- To make a sustainable society we’d need to live closer to work, there are too many people especially in America who commute from suburbs everyday, driving a total of 60 miles. I even know a couple who drive 200 miles a day. Car-pooling and public transportation can minimize those cost but they are unnecessary if we all live within walking distance or even biking distance. If a commute doesn’t include highways a bicycle is just about as fast as a car but not many people choose to use this form of transportation. As a society we should decide how much shelter we really need, small apartment takes much less energy to heat then a house with no adjacent structures. As a world we can also put an emphasis on making longer lasting products. Most electronics are useless within a few years, cars breakdown after 10 or 15 years, even homes start to fall apart after 40 years. Obtaining the resources to construct all these things is very costly, life would be much more sustainable if we didn’t have to replace our belongings every few years.
