This result is a little surprising. I was hoping my ecological footprint would be a little lower. I've read that if everyone in the world lived like the average American, it would take approximately 4.5 Earths (number could have easily changed since I saw that). And with my lifestyle taking about 3.8 planet Earths according to this quiz, I am not doing much better unfortunately than the average American. And that's the worrisome part about it being the "average", there are lots of people who are living much more consumptive lifestyles.
But of course, this quiz is just an estimation based on a few basic facets of your life, it cannot hope to truly break down your true ecological footprint. If it were a more investigative program, I think my score would be slightly lower. But I know I don't have the know-how to create such a program and certainly not the ambition to create one. So through the practice of making best out of which resources you have at hand, the results from this quiz do reflect your lifestyle, but should still be taken with a grain of salt. "Lifestyle" is a touchy subject, with there definitely being many areas of it that can be measured quantitatively and marked down, but there are also many intangibles that can't me measured in a 10 question quiz.
One easy change I think I can make is purchasing more local vegetables. The rare occasions I do eat any meat, it is free-range/hormone free beef from a local farm in Sardinia, OH which my parents pick up in person and transport back to their house. The majority of my vegetables I do eat are purchased at Kroger because let's face it, it's much easier to just drive 5 minutes and have all your vegetables located in one corner of the building. And who knows where those vegetables are from and how long it has been since they were actually harvested. One of the reasons why I think I do not go to farmers' markets as much as I would like is because of lack of time on the weekends. Whether it is because I am working or traveling, I never feel like taking extra trips when I actually do have some free time on a Saturday and Sunday. With summer coming up though, hopefully I can make some changes to my schedule which allow for a little more free time and be able to develop some habits that stick once Fall comes again.
Another change that wouldn't kill me is driving my car less to Clifton. I live on the east side of town at home still since I am paying for my own college and as a result, have a twenty-five minute drive to campus. Fortunately, this past semester I was able to schedule my classes so I only had to be on campus on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Friday, so that did cut down on some of the driving. Round trip, the trek to Clifton and back home is about 25 miles. So that's anywhere from 75-150 miles a week depending on how many days I have classes or trips I make down for other reasons. Riding the bus is something I have been wanting to do, even if it's only one day a week. One of the things preventing me is usually I have work less than an hour after I get out of class, and the bus takes over an hour to get to my place of work. So driving those days isn't something I can easily stop.
I believe a lot of people's (especially Americans) economic footprints are so deep are the obstacles that are in place to prevent people from trying to live more sustainably. For example, the low cost of fast food. Often burgers and other types of meat that are produced on large factory farms for cheap and often have a lot of adverse environmental effects. And even worse, are the negative health effects that come with the over consumption of these fatty foods. Which of course can lead to hospital bills and all sorts of other economic travesties. With no existing economic incentives in place for people to spend money on sustainable products, little is going to change. If people received (more) subsidies for greening how they power their homes, how close to where they live their produce and meats are raised, and how often they carpool/ride the bus, it certainly would help things.
Hi, Louie:
ReplyDeleteGood job. At least you are lower than the national average! (The figure I cited in class was an average of 4.1 earths per American, but 4.5 is also plausible. As you note, these are rough estimators.)
It's an important point you make about the systemic issues. I don't take the bus to work, even though it stops right outside my house, because it only comes once an hour and is just too inconvenient and unreliable. If the public transportation system was better, my incentives would be more correctly aligned. We all use a lot of energy just because of the way the U.S. grid is established, and while unplugging appliances can help, fundamentally we all as Americans have a large footprint unless we manage to live off-grid independently. So we can do some things, and you noted some good behavioral changes. But we also need to push for more systemic changes.
Best,
G
1.9/1.9