Writing Assignment 5 The Center for Sustainable Economy, ecological footprint quiz was very informative to partake in and the results were impartial to my thoughts based on questions of what I expected in each of the four consumption and ecosystem biomes categories except for one. What I found surprising was the overall results of my lifestyle, that equate to 4.83 Earths, if everyone on the planet lived my lifestyle. Wow! The organizations web page states about the quiz, that they are working on enhancing the quiz overall accuracy and relevancy to current sustainability issues. Therefore, the averages in each category they are currently using, …show more content…
I feel has a survey - poll effect with a ± margin for error. In the four consumption categories, three of my footprints were well below the country’s average, except for my food footprint which was 10.8 higher than the country’s average. I found this to be a bit puzzling at first, but after dwelling on some of the questions within the food footprint category. I have come to a few conclusions. In one of our past assignments we discussed an article about dietary guideline recommendations for Americans. I think this is somewhat relevant to the food footprint category. I mention in that assignment that many people, like myself, simply do not have the means financially to eat as healthier as others in which some environmental issues come into play. Such as the type of merchants packaging of food items can vary from low cost, discount, to organic and gourmet. As well as the recyclable options of bagging the foods to carry out after purchasing. Unfortunately, I am one of those people with less means and options of obtaining my idea meal planning goals. Looking at the housing footprint, I presently live in large urban apartment complex that was built long before organized Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (L.E.E.D.) and other environmental friendly projects surfaced. We do not have any form of recycling for glass, plastic, aluminum or paper in place like the neighboring homes in my area. However, my complex has many large trees, with a small narrow creek that runs through the entire complex as its only natural resources that are green friendly. Regardless, I have been recycling for quite some time and have my own reusable, renewable system in place, which the quiz does not take all of it in account on my behalf, yet the housing category was my lowest score of all. Since the first Earth Day event in 1970, I probably only been aware of its existence in the last 20 years or so. I have made a conscience effort in spreading the word and participating in many of the communities’ events over the years for Earth Day. However, earth day should be every day for us to make and take the initiative to help sustain our planet daily. I am a distant learner at Georgia State University (GSU), and because of my obligation and lifestyle, I have very little time available to participate in or attend events on or around the campus. I recall in my earlier years of attending college in the 1980’s, my fraternity is not only social, but service orientated as well. We provide and offer our service by participating in local community events such as a clean-up and conservatory event. I see a huge opportunity for GSU’s Atlanta campus students to become more involve with projects focusing on healthy and sustainable cities and more. I am sure that many of the student organizations on campus are leading the way in community service initiatives. GSU Office of Sustainability, each year host a week-long, “Earth Week” events leading up to earth day, which will be on the 22nd of April this year. To learn more and I encourage those living near one of the campuses to get involve. Visit their web page at http://sustainability.gsu.edu/earth-week/. Rallying for change and cleaning up for improvements was a local event I participated that was leading up to a public hearing by the local city government on improvements for a local park.
As I walked pass three bystanders, I overheard their conversation and to the least, they spoke very discouraging about the collective goal of the rally. I started to just keep walking but felt compel to at least try to understand their negativism and lack of support for the cause of the rally and park clean up event. After several back-to-back probing and questionable conversation with the three elder men. I learned that they have lived in the community for over four decades and has never witness any positive change for the park besides replacement basketball frames, tennis nets and one added playground equipment for children. They spoke of poor company coming and going, the means of drug dealers and addicts. I empathize with them and understood their frustration and why they felt that the rally would be just a thing of the past, with no change in the future. I challenged the gentlemen to let their voices be heard at the local hearing, because they not only live in the community, but are the history and knowledge of the community. I felt good and energized after my conversation with the collective bystanders, since one of them said that he will be at the hearing to give the local authorities a piece of his mind, and he did just that. A week later at the hearing, the attendees gave the elder gentleman a standing ovation after he spoke passionate about the park and its history and he pointed out that the rallying group request for improvements should be
honored. Work Cites Center for Sustainable Economy. Future Improvements. Ecology Footprints, n.d. Web. 30 March 2018.
After witnessing the older gentleman give a piece of his mind to the mayor, I was hoping for more residents to stand up and demand action from their local government. I wanted people to step up and tell the local government that some of ...
Both the volunteers and children were timid, but because of my natural imagination and easy-going nature with the children, I started telling silly stories they spent minutes laughing over and then watched them stretch their faces in front of my camera. I learned that I had a natural ability to start a movement, connect two different groups of people, and create bonds between them. Again, I was also shown with this ability when a fight emerged from my other group of younger volunteers. Many of them were angry at our group leader, all declaring to act out in some form of rebellion as revenge. Although I was angry at her myself, I respected my leader and refused to take a part of it. Instead of arguing, I talked to them and explained our leader’s possible situation. I have always had the ability to understand another person’s point of view, so I explained to them that taking care of twenty young teenagers is challenging and knowing each of our individual situations was difficult. Instead, I proposed we talk about our problems with our leader peacefully, which was what we ended up doing and created a tighter, stronger bond in our
The issue with typical public hearings is, not everyone can attend, and not everyone who attends speaks. The first problem should have been alleviated by the fact questionnaire asking what times and dates worked best for the community in the photo questionnaire and set up the public hearing accordingly. The second part is more difficult to deal with, not everyone is comfortable speaking in public, or even at the community gathering they may not be comfortable coming up to strangers to voice their concerns. So, when everyone arrives on their way into the hearing a small survey will be given to them that also provides space for them to write down their concerns. This survey will not only gauge preference, but will also be asking some personal questions about age, race, and sex so that there can be an accurate measure of who showed up to the public hearing and different concerns of different subcultures. This survey will provide data that can be utilized in the future, that is more accurate than simply writing down what everyone says during the public hearing. For the public hearing, there will be multiple different design approaches shown that were created based off the results of the questionnaire, these designs will show the community what is possible, and that their input is being heard. Rather than asking them to pick a favorite of the bunch they will be asked to pick some
Sustainable living to reduce your personal footprint (n.d.). In WWF Global. Retrieved May 4, 2014, from
The compiled information comes from a very small portion of the population in the USA and Canada, which could lead to bias responses as these people know they are being measured.
...king it quicker for the subjects using their time to fill it out. I got a little confused during my initial calculating of the surveys due to the amount of questions and the different age groups I split each survey up in.
As a human race I could not with a good conscious say that we have all done that is possible to preserve our planet. I believe it partially should be blamed on our lack of knowledge on how we are actually affecting it. If you ask the common college student results prove that most would say they care to a certain extent. However, they also know that they are just one person in this world. Therefore, I believe this would be an excellent article for The Shorthorn. Geologist might say that it is too late to turn back from what has already been done. Simply buying a Prius or turning off the air conditioning won’t save our Earth. The fact of the matter is that “this civilization is already dead.” Now the key
There is no hesitation when it comes to whether humans impact the global environment. However, it is questioned in whether human’s ecological footprint is either negatively or positively impacting. In clear perspective, humans share from both sides and their ecological footprint is noted towards whether it will benefit or harm the environment around them. Topics such as overpopulation, pollution, biomagnification, and deforestation are all human impacted and can harm the environment, but some include benefits into helping the world around us with solutions to their problems.
Garbage is floating in the lake. It is heartbreaking to see what has happened to the park. It used to be so nice. If something isn’t done, no one will want to go there anymore. I feel that cleaning up City Park should be a top priority for our community. One reason I feel this way is that my dad says that City Park used to be beautiful. When he was growing up, his family spent every weekend in the park. People would swim, fish, and have picnics. Everyone loved to go there. I wish it were like that today…but now, the park is a dump! Children my age don’t want to play there because there is so much garbage in the water and on the grass. I also think that the baseball fields are dangerous. I know this because I am on a team. The grass is really high. One player on my team actually cut his knew. He tripped on a weed while he was trying to catch a ball in the outfield. We lost the game and he couldn’t play for two whole weeks. My dad told me, “If they don’t fix those fields, you’re not playing baseball anymore.” He is not the only parent who is upset. The parents of my teammates are worried, too. Anyone who cares about the kids in our town should be disturbed about this
From an early age, American children are taught about the Constitution and one very important amendment; the first. We are taught that we have the freedom of speech, religion, the press, and the right to assemble. I’ve seen media coverage of riots and fights and burning buildings. I’ve seen pictures in my history textbooks of marches for civil rights and suffrage. But the belief that my voice has an impact didn’t peak until this year. On January 20, 2018, my friend and I attended the Women’s March in Chicago. We took the 5:45 AM train into Chicago. I questioned this choice a lot, especially when my alarm started going off at four in the morning, but when we reached the speaking area for the rally, we were at the front, literally standing
Walking past fundraisers and activists is just another regular occurrence on the streets when living in Chicago. The slogans range from “Help Feed Starving Children in India” to “SeaWorld Kills!” A few weeks ago as I was walking down State Street and witnessed an activist getting heckled by a middle-aged woman. Hoarse screaming bounced off the buildings as she yelled, “You’re killing babies you know that right?! You’re killing innocent babies!!” Those words alone were enough to catch the attention of half the street.
According to the quiz, it would take, “17.5 global acres of the Earth’s productive area,” to also support me. What I found most surprising was the statistic of how many Earths it would take to support ~7 billion of me. The fact that we have no other habitable planets in the near future, and humans’ demand of resources only grows means that we do not have a bright future. If the human population continued to consume resources as it is, it would only be lucky for us to end up as the human race does in the Pixar movie, Wall-E.
The way I live compared to a few classmates of mine, I have the most impact on the earth. As well as compared to my whole class I would say that I change the environment more than an average person would. For example my total footprint according to the ecological footprint quiz I took is about 28 acres. With the results that it had given me I suspect that my actions of using a lot of services and the way I use my transportation, are the most impactful way I affect the earth. The reason my mobility on the quiz is one of the highest percentages from the categories is because I drive a good amount, and on top of that I have truck that does not get good gas mileage which in results give off more emissions to pollute the air. I was not surprised with my ecological footprint because I knew I impacted my environment greatly, but did not know the exact or estimated amount. In comparison to my classmates I also was not surprised that we all affected the earth greater than an average person because I knew that I did, so it led me to think that there were people who in similar amount affect the
Participation by the public, amongst other things, is crucial to the success of the EIA process.
"What Countries Have the Biggest Carbon Footprint?" Educational Articles and Tips from Postconsumers. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 May 2014.