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Footprint

Ecological Footprint: Creating a Sustainable World

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Going into this activity, I wasn’t even slightly worried that my footprint might be large. I don’t eat meat, and I take public transportation regularly. I really try to be conscious of my energy use. These things made me feel like an environmentalist extraordinaire. I was wrong.

According to this calculator, to sustain my lifestyle worldwide we’d need 4.6 Earths. Granted this is below the American average, it’s still not good – especially in light of what I thought it was. In terms of acreage, my lifestyle takes up 20.5 of global acres, compared to the average of 17. So in this regard, my footprint is actually worse than that of the average American. Most of the acreage is used by energy land.  To me, the fact that my acreage is more than the average American is even more disturbing than the amount of Earths it takes to sustain my lifestyle. This is really eye-opening.

My ecological footprint consisted primarily of services. I’m not entirely sure what this means exactly, but I’m positive that there are many changes I could make in my life to shrink my footprint. I could start eating more locally grown produce, and preparing more of my own food – which, as a college kid, I’m not the best at. I could also cut down on my use of electricity and my consumption of new gadgets, which take a lot of resources to make, and a lot of land to produce. I could encourage my family and friends to do the same, so that our household and others live more sustainably.

graph

According to my graph, eating large quantities of meat has the greatest effect on ecological footprint. It follows that if everyone around the world were to switch to a vegetarian diet, it would be conducive to creating a much more sustainable society. In conjunction with using mass transit more and using energy sparingly, this could create a more sustainable world. Of course, these individual choices are important, and mass awareness is key – but to change the course of the world definitively, more must be done. Industry is the cause of a large amount of the environmental issues we are seeing today; we either change this system, or resign ourselves indefinitely to environmental degradation. This is something we all need to come to terms with, and commit to taking action against.

 

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Footprints in the sand~

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ROSE

 

1. How does your original footprint compare to the country average (US per capita is 5 planets and 17 acres)?

My original footprint was the one labeled Apartment. I sort of expected the number of earths and acres to 3.3 and 14.9, respectively. I have a low meat diet, I don’t really purchase things often, and I live close enough to the school to walk every day.

2. What changes could you make and what level would it make a difference, it any? Include your bar graph.

For the next two simulations, I changed my mode of living from apartment to house, just to see if that would make a difference in the footprint I leave, and also made myself a voracious eater, which I believe is the standard stereotype of Americans.

Making the switch from apartment to house didn’t have as much of an effect on the environment as I thought, which makes me feel better about when I’m at home. However, now that I think about it, there really isn’t that much of a difference between living in a house vs an apartment. Sure, the apartment may accumulate some extra charges when it comes to heating and lighting the hallways and such, but the house makes up for it with it’s own maintenance fees.

Labeling the third simulation “Voracious Eater” might be a bit confusing, so I’ll explain the boundaries. The changes I made were based on what came to mind when I thought about how the average American (okay, hillbilly) ate: A lot of processed foods, meat in almost every meal, and virtually nothing locally grown. So I made my changes based on those, and boy did the amounts skyrocket! As you can see, I also included the amount of CO2 emission each lifestyle would produce, and the numbers changed dramatically with a heavy meat, processed, non-local food diet.  All three factors contribute a great amount of CO2 in either production or transportation, which certainly adds up.

3. What do you think, overall, we need to do as a society, as a world, to really make a more sustainable society?

Clearly, all the options in the simulation illustrate a decision that would affect the world; I think it’s up to us to take those options, and make the better choice. Being more conscious of our eating and buying habits so that less energy is required to sustain us, would be a start. We can re-evaluate how many material possessions we actually need, and stop ourselves from making impulsive purchases. Walk more, eat less, and buy less things are all a good start, not just for the environment, but for ourselves as well.

Footprint

Ecological Footprint Analysis (will do in class 12/12)

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In class on 12/12 we will be discussing what it means to be sustainable as well as what levels and scales we need to act to achieve sustainability: individual, local, global. You will then complete an ecological footprint analysis and vary the parameters to test the difference you could make to reduce individual carbon footprints.

Ecological Footprint Analysis
footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/gfn/page/calculators/
1. Calculate your carbon footprint and how many planets and acres are needed to sustain a lifestyle similar to yours (use the detailed parameters).
2. Pick three parameters to maximize (e.g. diet, transportation, energy) and determine how that changes the footprint. Make a bar graph that shows how many planets OR acres you need based on the parameter maximized (also include your original calculation).

(NOTES: Can measure transport distance with Google maps;  NYC gets 11% of energy from renewables)

Discussion QUESTIONS to answer in you blog post:
1. How does your original footprint compare to the country average (US per capita is 5 planets and 17 acres)?
2. What changes could you make and what level would it make a difference, it any? Include your bar graph.
3. What do you think, overall, we need to do as a society, as a world, to really make a more sustainable society?