After reading the ecological footprint data on the Wikipedia site I was very surprised that humanity uses ecological services 1.4 times as fast as Earth can renew them. I thought that this number would be much higher than this personally. According to Wikipedia the 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 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_footprint).
I was very shocked after taking one of the ecological footprint quizzes. According to the assessment if everyone lived like me we'd need 5.5 Planet Earth's to provide enough resources, 24.5 global acres of the Earth's productive area, and Services and Food were the highest percentage on my pie chart. I was kinda in disbelief by this information because I truly didn't think/realize that I used this much energy, services, etc. We recycle like crazy at my apartment! After looking at it and thinking about it the electricity we use and the amount of time I spend driving my car probably contributes to most of the damage on our planet. In closing, we as a population as a whole need to conserve natural resources and find other ways to live a more reasonable, less taxing lifestyle on the environment.
Source: (Ecological Footprint)
Matt I agree with you ! its crazy to see how much energy we actually use on a daily basis. And like you I think on of the biggest problems is the car driving and the electricity I use. Hopefully we can all work on reducing our energy consumption and try to be more environmentally friendly.
ReplyDeleteIsn't it crazy how many resources we actually use without thinking about it. I too had a high score of 4.6 planet Earth's to meet my needs. I think it would be a great idea for our class to come together to attempt to lower our numbers and retake this test towards the end of the semester.
ReplyDeleteMatt I know that electricity and gas have an impact on your eco footprint but I was schocked to find out that cutting down animal products can help a bunch too!
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