According to this quiz, if everyone on this planet lived like me, we would need roughly 4.13 earths to supply my needs! This is horrible! During the quiz, I thought I was doing fairly well. I am pretty conservative with my water and energy use. I recycle frequently and drive a tiny Toyota Corolla. I was almost certain that my ecological footprint was more like a paw print, but in reality we would need 4.13 earths per person (according to my lifestyle), and that is NOT a good ratio. What is even more shocking is the fact that I was well below the national average in almost all the "footprint categories." Basically they break your footprint down to 4 different categories: Carbon Footprint, Food Footprint, Housing Footprint, and Goods and Services Footprint. I tied the national average for my food footprint size, but everything else was well below the average. This was shocking to me because I alone require 4.13 earths to meet my resource needs. If this doesn't already sound horrible, think about how many earths the average American needs to meet their resource needs?
For me, taking this quiz kind of brought everything into perspective as to how heavily we use our resources, and how this issue is really turning into an exponential problem. Obviously we only have 1 earth so if everyone takes more than they give back, our resources will run out quicker than we know. I personally will need to work on not purchasing so many processed foods, along with foods that come from far away. This will help minimize the size of my Food Footprint, and ultimately make my ecological footprint much smaller.
Here are some links for more information and quizzes on your ecological footprint:
Posts
Ben,
ReplyDeleteVery true about how if everyone takes more than they give back we will run out of resources. I wonder how well I would do on that test. Well anyway glad to see you are below the National average for using natural resources.
I think the processed foods and foods from far away are things most Americans, including myself, need to work on. In fact, those are things I have thinking about a lot lately. I have some strategies in place but want to learn more!
ReplyDeleteBen- I took that quiz too and I thought that I was doing pretty good too and I ended up have 5.3 earths! I couldn't believe it!!!
ReplyDeleteBen- It really is crazy on how much we really take up...I watched a show on how much us Americans use and it is really crazy cause I think on their they said the average was like 6-7 earths. Pretty crazy...thats when I started to look and see what I could do to make the number lower.
ReplyDeleteBen - I was surprised too on my earth level! I for sure thought that it was going to be a small number and something that I would be proud of. However, once I did the quiz and saw my reality, I was very surprised. If everyone lived like me, it would take up 3 earths!
ReplyDeleteHey Ben-
ReplyDeleteAfter I took the quiz I realized if everyone lived like me we would need 5 earths :( That's terrible.. We all have things to work on so our resources don't run out so quickly. Good post!
Ben- I agree with you on the food part. I had never realized how important it is to our environment to purchase locally and fresh. If you visit my blog, I talked about lessening my food footprint.
ReplyDeleteI liked how you said, we all take from the earth and never give back. It was a great visual for me! See you in class... --S
There is an award for you on my blog! It's for the photo contest. Have a good one!
ReplyDeleteHey Ben,
ReplyDeleteIt seems that most of us struggle with the food issues! I talked about this issue as well and Sara J said we should all take a mini trip to the whole foods co-op and purchase some foods, learn some more, and then create a meal as a group/class! I thought she had a great idea especially because food seems to be a very common theme that cause all of our footprints to be so darn big!:) Hope your workout was good the other day I saw you and great job I see you won the photo contest!:)
Hey Ben! Great job on your post! i too struggle with the food issues. I eat a lot of packaged foods and processed items. Whole foods just don't keep a long time and are inconvenient when it comes to college kids. Maybe I should think of how inconvenient it is for our earth when I go to purchase these items next time. I agree with Abbey on going to whole foods and purchasing some better foods for our environment! You in?
ReplyDelete