Ecological Footprint
 

Was gonna post this in "Cool Site..." but I thought it might deserve it's own thread.

http://www.myfootprint.org/

My results:
I make no claims as to it's accuracy, and leave it to people smarter than me to debate its validity vs. propaganda value. But I did find it interesting, and the questions asked gave me food for thought regarding a lot of my habits, especially travel.

Here's mine. Interesting.

CATEGORY ACRES

FOOD 3.5

MOBILITY 0.2

SHELTER 3

GOODS/SERVICES 2.2

TOTAL FOOTPRINT 9

IN COMPARISON, THE AVERAGE ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT IN YOUR COUNTRY IS 24 ACRES PER PERSON.

WORLDWIDE, THERE EXIST 4.5 BIOLOGICALLY PRODUCTIVE ACRES PER PERSON.

IF EVERYONE LIVED LIKE YOU, WE WOULD NEED 2 PLANETS.

My results:
Apparently, it's all the milk I drink. I have milk on my cereal, cheese on my sandwich at lunch, and milk with my dinner. Apparently that takes 6.9 acres. I seriously doubt that, but can't offer up any proof. If I was a vegan, my food would be 2.7 acres.

I just took the test again and chose the most environmentally correct answer each time, and it says that if everyone lived that way, we would need one planet. Well, not everyone lives that way, and we only have one planet, so there you go.

Most environmental:

OK. This time I answered like I was the late Malcolm Forbes:

Here is the FAQ, and it's kind of annoying that you have to take the test to get a link to it.

The FAQ doesn't seem to talk too much about how the numbers are reached. Sort of a vague answer followed by "but this is how to make your score lower".

Edit: actually, some of the answers seem pretty clear. It's almost like different people wrote the answers to each question.

CATEGORY GLOBAL HECTARES

FOOD 1.6

MOBILITY 7.3

SHELTER 0.7

GOODS/SERVICES 6

TOTAL FOOTPRINT 15.6



IN COMPARISON, THE AVERAGE ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT IN YOUR COUNTRY IS 5.3 GLOBAL HECTARES PER PERSON.

WORLDWIDE, THERE EXIST 1.8 BIOLOGICALLY PRODUCTIVE GLOBAL HECTARES PER PERSON.




IF EVERYONE LIVED LIKE YOU, WE WOULD NEED 8.7 PLANETS.


OOOPS!! Maybe I should stop scoffing all the pies while I drive at 100mph round my country mansion.

yeah i win!!! a high score always makes you the winner right?

:eyebrow:

CATEGORY ACRES
FOOD 4.9
MOBILITY 4.4
SHELTER 6.9
GOODS/SERVICES 10.4
TOTAL FOOTPRINT 27



IN COMPARISON, THE AVERAGE ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT IN YOUR COUNTRY IS 24 ACRES PER PERSON.

WORLDWIDE, THERE EXIST 4.5 BIOLOGICALLY PRODUCTIVE ACRES PER PERSON.



IF EVERYONE LIVED LIKE YOU, WE WOULD NEED 6 PLANETS.

How come it worked mine out in hectares? Is it because i'm in the UK? Anyway, i'm off to burn tyres and turn the heating up!

i've found that if you just start lighting people on fire, you can store your old tires and oil cans in their houses rather than burning them.

"Save the environment, kill a human!" kind of has a nice ring doesn't it?

Why stop at one? Kill hundreds of 'em. Osami Bin Laden could become the new environmental hero. Of course you'd have to target the humans who lived in places like Western Europe, Australia, the UK, and the States since the residents of these countries use the most resources per capita. Maybe there could be a kind of bonus system. Killing someone like me would only score a person 2 environmental points, but you'd be a man with a real price on his head at a 6 planet net worth! :D

CATEGORY ACRES
FOOD 3.5
MOBILITY 0.7
SHELTER 13.1
GOODS/SERVICES 9.4
TOTAL FOOTPRINT 27

IN COMPARISON, THE AVERAGE ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT IN YOUR COUNTRY IS 24 ACRES PER PERSON.

WORLDWIDE, THERE EXIST 4.5 BIOLOGICALLY PRODUCTIVE ACRES PER PERSON.

IF EVERYONE LIVED LIKE YOU, WE WOULD NEED 6 PLANETS. :p

Isn't it unfair to measure you vs 'biologically productive acres', if you're scoring points for 'mobility' and 'shelter'?

I've not read the website, of course. But "shelter" strikes me as a fairly one-time expense, if it's building materials and such.

Well shucks. Good thing there are so many people in countries not nearly as well off as this one to balance everything out, eh? :rolleyes:

i like where you're going with this, continue... sort of an updated
Death Race 2000 ?

you have to heat and cool the house, so the bigger it is the more energy it uses to do so...

my score was over 6 planets, ouch. what killed me was i commute 70mi total to work and back a day (marion to iowa city and back, for anyone nosey). the university has carpools, which i think are great, but as a mom, i need to have transportation available in case i need to leave in the middle of the day... the doubled gas prices have KILLED our budget. i drive a 2000 taurus sel, ~28mpg last time i checked.

CATEGORY ACRES
FOOD 4.9
MOBILITY 0.7
SHELTER 4.2
GOODS/SERVICES 4.4
TOTAL FOOTPRINT 14

Only 3.2 planets? I guess I'm something of an underachiever.

Don't worry, when I win the lottery I'll rectify that.

my daily driver is a toyota 4 cyl truck. decent mpg, but i fixed that by underinflating my tires, loading the backend with sand, poking holes in a couple of hoses - gotta do my part to destroy the environment, ya know.

The survey says I need 4.4 planets which, frankly, I find hard to believe. Two, three planets, OK, but 4.4? Now, come on!

CATEGORY GLOBAL HECTARES

FOOD 0.8

MOBILITY 0.4

SHELTER 0.6

GOODS/SERVICES 1.2

TOTAL FOOTPRINT 3


IN COMPARISON, THE AVERAGE ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT IN YOUR COUNTRY IS 9 GLOBAL HECTARES PER PERSON.

WORLDWIDE, THERE EXIST 1.8 BIOLOGICALLY PRODUCTIVE GLOBAL HECTARES PER PERSON.

IF EVERYONE LIVED LIKE YOU, WE WOULD NEED 1.7 PLANETS.


Quite encouraging, but a little odd they didn't have England on there, so I opted for 'Island'.

This here planet ain't big enough for the both of us...

So what they're saying is that we need to kill off a few millions of people in each of the underdevelpoed countries so we can raise the yield per acre.

Bingo! You're a smart guy, TS, and I knew you'd finally figure it out. Why does the US consistently engage in undeclared wars with third world countries? We're getting rid of all those useless eaters who clutter up the planet! BTW, Lookout, I didn't invent the game you referred to above. Check with your local Homeland Security Force if you want to know the rules and how to play. Just remember I have an uzi! :p

I WIN, I WIN. Don't remember the details but 8.9 planets for me! Probably because there are four buses a day where I live, so taking the bus to and from work is a nono, and then I don't live in a terraced house/flat.

And this despite being closely involved with the local recycling organisation (a voluntary community group because the local authority to whom we pay taxes to do this sort of thing don't do it because we live on an island ... :mad2: :mad2: :mad2: )

PS Catwoman, look for the UK not England (or Scotland!)

Ecology is overrated
 

CATEGORY ACRES

FOOD 6.9

MOBILITY 5.4

SHELTER 11.9

GOODS/SERVICES 15.8

TOTAL FOOTPRINT 40



IN COMPARISON, THE AVERAGE ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT IN YOUR COUNTRY IS 24 ACRES PER PERSON.

WORLDWIDE, THERE EXIST 4.5 BIOLOGICALLY PRODUCTIVE ACRES PER PERSON.




IF EVERYONE LIVED LIKE YOU, WE WOULD NEED 9 PLANETS.
----------------

Yeah, whatever. If sustainability means living with 7 people in a mud hovel, eating whatever happens to grow nearby, and never travelling more than a few miles from home, then I say "Earth First! We'll exploit the other planets later".

We really should get that on a bumper sticker.

I'd like to see them compare it to the actually productivity in the country we're living in. the US has by far the most productive agricultural land in the world, due in part to good soil, but due mostly to incredible advances in the technology of farming. I would argue against the idea that there is a universally standardized "production per acre" for every country.

My brother-in-law is in Tanzania right now, trying to teach local farmers how to use sustainable, higher yield farming methods to maximise the use of their lands. We're talking the absolute basics here, like how to efficiently irrigate, how to use fertilizer, how to let a field fallow so that it doesn't get stripped of all usable nutrients. I think there are many, many parts of the world where poor transportation, poor education, and official corruption degrade the productivity of land, much more so than a simple lack of resources (water and seed crop).

Just my $.02 - I'm no student of agriculture, but when has that ever stopped me from having an opinion.

Happy October all.

-sm

Define 'productive'. OK I'm sure the US is most efficient in terms of quantity - she is queen of mass production in every sense. But what about conservation, ecology, quality? If you run your land to the ground (so to speak) it may yield more crops for now, but long term, you will destroy the quality of the land through over-production, GM crops etc. This is not productiveness. This is carnage and another manifestation of the 'buy now pay later' attitude inherent in our society.

I understand how overproduction is detrimental, but how do GM crops destroy land??

well, so far, the central valley of California has been "destroying the quality of the land through over-production" for over 100 years now, and we've yet to see the roof come crashing down. I think it's a bit arrogant of you to assume that american farmers are poor administrators of their own land. If any industry has as accute an awareness of the neccesity of future viability as does agriculture, I'm unaware of it. All they own is their land, and they manage it with a long view toward sustainable production. Come see Ventura county, where I grew up. See how well they tend the land, how carefully they balance their resources, and how amazingly productive they make their land.

Not every advance in production is at the expense of the environment, or at the expense of future viability, and along those lines, not everything thought up and implemented by an american is inherently evil. Just a friendly reminder.

-sm