Reading about Ecological Footprints was very interesting. I had no idea what an ecological footprint was until reading about it in Wikipedia. Your ecological footprint is how much land and sea is needed to regenerate the resources consumed by you on Earth. Everyone's footprint is different because not everyone uses the same amount of resources on a daily basis. To figure out my footprint I took a quiz called the Earth Day Footprint Calculator. I was very surprised to find out my results. According to the quiz, if everyone lived like me we would need 4.6 planet Earths to provide enough resources. It also takes 20.5 global acres of the Earth's productive area to support my lifestyle. My results are actually embarrassing. I obviously use way too many resources. The questions they asked to find out my score were unusual. For example, asking how much meat I ate. More specifically, they broke up the meat into categories like pork, chicken, fish, beef, and diary. I was not sure what that had to with ecological footprint but after thinking about it eating our animal resources does effect the Earth in many ways.
Another quiz I took was the Carbon Footprint Calculator. The Carbon Calculator calculates how much CO2 you emit into the air. It mainly questioned how much I travel, how much food I eat that is locally grown or packaged, and how much gas and electric are used in my home. At the end of the quiz it compares your score to eight other countries and of course the U.S. was the highest. This quiz is not as reliable as it could be because the values are based on the U.K. but it still gives you a good idea of what your carbon score would be.
The last quiz I took was the Travel Calculator Quiz. This quiz calculates how much emissions you put into the air while driving to work, sporting activities, shopping, and holidays. My score ended up being worse than average. I think it was worse than average because when traveling the majority of the time I am alone and when I go home I have to drive approximately 130 miles so that ends up being 260 miles both there and back.
Overall, I found learning about the Ecological Footprint very interesting. I realize after taking these quizzes that I am not very environmentally friendly. When weather permits I need to bike or walk places more or start to carpool with friends. I also need to recycle more. There are many easy and efficient ways to help the Earth and I need to start doing some of them. Hopefully after seeing me become more environmentally friendly, my family and friends will do the same thing.
These quizes were very eye opening. I really hope to become more environmentally friendly as well. Its crazy to think of how much of our resources that we actually use. Hopefully as a class when can work together and become more environmentally friendly together.
ReplyDeleteI too found the information regarding our Ecological Footprint very interesting and eye opening. I also would like to be more environmentally friendly and I didn't realize that I wasn't so drastically, based on my quiz results. Your ideas where very good and too should try to car pool more, etc. Good post
ReplyDeleteI too took that travling quiz and got similar results to you. I think alot of our travle has to do with "social norms" as college students we are supposed to leave home and be independent, yet we are supposed to be family oriented so travle is simply part of our culture. Also MN is famous for our lack of public transporation so as health educators we have our work cut out for us with thinking outside the box!
ReplyDelete