Eye Opener: Ecological Footprint

According to Wikipedia, your ecological footprint is a measure of human demand on the Earth's ecosystems. It compares human demand with planet Earth's ecological capacity to regenerate. It represents the amount of biologically productive land and sea area needed to regenerate the resources a human population consumes and to absorb and render harmless the corresponding waste. Using this assessment, it is possible to estimate how much of the Earth (or how many planet Earths) it would take to support humanity if everybody lived a given lifestyle.

I did the ecological footprint quiz and discovered that if everyone on the planet lived my lifestyle we would need 4.87 earths! Now I’m not the most environmental friendly person but I definitely thought I would do much better than that! I feel that I’m very conservative when it comes to electricity, heat and recycling. =) My roommates and I wait till almost November to turn on our heat and throughout the winter we try to keep it around 66 degrees. We use power strips and turn off unnecessary lights whenever possible and this past summer we installed compact fluorescent bulbs throughout our entire house. All but one of my roommates take pretty short showers and this may be a little gross but if we all have to #1 at the same time we just let it mellow until the last person is through and then we flush. I know this sounds really gross but the plumber said the less we flush the more we will save on our water bill because our toilet has a big tank. (Sry if I grossed anyone out! =) So with all that said, I thought I was in pretty good shape compared to others.

One of the things I should consider to reduce my ecological footprint is traveling. I should do less driving to and from school and work. I really don’t live that far from both of them but I’m ALWAYS running late! (But in my defense, I do carpool to both destinations because we all go to school at the same time almost every morning and three of us work at the same place.) I definitely don’t drive home as often as I used to so that’s also a plus but when I do it’s a four hour trip there and back (3.5 if I drive fast, shhh don’t tell my grandma.) And according to the travel calculator my total annual pollution from road transport is better than average. (Booya!) But I in the end I really like the quote stated by the travel calculator, “Burn calories not fuel.” =)

Other things recommended from my quiz results would be to dry my clothes outside whenever possible (in the summer of course), defrost my refrigerator and freezer regularly, eat more local, organic, in-season foods, and by choosing foods with less packaging to reduce waste. =)