Footprints

Photo By: William Navarro

When considering one's day to day choices, it's undeniable that our actions affect our planet, and collectively that can be an large problem considering there are roughly 7.7 billion of us on Earth. If we learn to look at our own ecological footprints, we can then change accordingly to lessen the negative impact. By taking the Ecological Footprint Calculator, it is determined that if everyone lived like me it would take 2.1 Earths to provide enough resources. 

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Broken down it looks something like this:

By category, food and goods are the biggest contributors, and that didn't really surprise me. While I try to eat little meat, circumstances typically mean that if that's what's for dinner then that's what we eat. There is definitely room to incorporate more locally sourced vegetables and fruit and cut out processed goods to limit that number. As for goods given my household has 6 people we do end up needing more resources to sustain us all. But  I think if we shopped smarter we could limit our waste. One thing I've always wanted to get was net bags for produce to use at the grocery store instead of the plastic bags or reusable Ziploc bags that are made to be used more than one time.  I live very close to my job and school so mobility being that low wasn't so surprising. As for shelter, there is no spot in our home that goes unused and with so many people we actually end up stepping on each other so perhaps while size needs to be the same (or larger). If our home was made out of different material and we invested in solar energy that could be more practical.

Photo By: Karsten Wurth

By: Sylvie Tittel