Ecological Footprint

Have you ever wondered how your current lifestyle might effect our planets resources?  What if there were some simple steps you could take that would help reduce the amount of resources we use on a daily basis.  There is a web-site that you can go to that will help you understand how your everyday activities are impacting our planet, and it will also give you helpful ideas that you can implement into your lifestyle to make a positive impact on our planet.  The web-site is www.footprintnetwork.org/calculator.  I went to this web-site and completed the quiz myself.  Below are the results of my Ecological Footprint:

     If everyone lived like me, we would need 4.4 planet Earths to provide enough resources for our population.  Obviously we do not have 4.4 planet Earths to spare so there are definitely changes that have to be made.  To support my lifestyle, it takes 19.4 global acres of the Earths productive area and 20.6 tons of carbon dioxide.  To break down my results of the quiz even further, it shows that the largest area for improvement for me would be in services that I use, which accounts for 45% of my Ecological Footprint.  This is followed by mobility which accounts for 17%.  So what did I learn from this exercise?  Well, I learned that if I make some simple changes in the way I live, I can do my part to help reduce the amount of the Earths resources that are used to sustain my lifestyle.  If we reduce the amount of animal products that we currently eat by half, we would use 645 million fewer global acres, which would cover 484 million football fields.  More impact can be made if we purchased more products that use less packaging or are made from recycled material.  Using public transportation one day a week instead of driving my SUV could help make big impacts on the amount of resources used.  The web-site offers several more ideas that will help make the necessary lifestyle changes needed to ensure that our children and grandchildren have the opportunity to live full healthy lives on this planet.  Go ahead and log on to the web-site yourself and see how you can help by changing your Ecological Footprint.

www.footprintnetwork.org/calculator