My life in my environment: My Ecological Footprint

Ecological Footprint Calculator

Since the consumer consequences game was no longer available online, I chose to measure my ecological footprint through another option that was given on that website, created by Discovery's Planet Green. Through this analysis, I discovered if everyone on the planet lived as my roommates and I do, we would need four planets to support all of us, since our ecological footprint is 25 hectares. This was some extremely shocking, concerning, disturbing information. Thank God everyone on Earth doesn't live the way we do....

I also discovered majority of my ecological footprint comes from my household's need for energy; 67.3% of our footprint actually. This is followed by our need for crops, our need for grazing land, our need for forest land, and is followed up by our need for fishing land. I was aware that we probably don't live as eco-friendly as we should, but I had no idea how truly devastating our lifestyles are to the environment.

Solutions to Our Big Feet

After taking this footprint test, I called my roommates into my room and showed them my results. They were amazed that if every household in the world lived like we did, we wouldn't have a planet to live on. Since we've all been trying to eat healthy in order to prepare for our upcoming volleyball season, we decided we should try to find local farmers where we can purchase our food. Although it might be a little more expensive and less convenient to do so, our bodies will appreciate the change and so will our planet.

Since we already carpool together in order to save gas and energy, we also will be focusing on being more energy efficient in our house. When we first moved in, we made a pact to make sure to save as much energy as possible by turning off all lights and electronic devices when they aren't in use. Yet, we've strayed from this pact over the past few months, so we've decided to pay more attention and do our part in saving energy, which will help us save money on our energy bill in return. With these goals in place, we hope to reduce our ecological footprint in order to save our planet. The least we can do is make sure we do what we can make our lifestyles more sustainable.