Kayla O’Connell
Human Geography
Ecological Footprint
An ecological footprint measures the resources you use and formulates a number of Earths the world would need if everybody lived by the same means as you. This equation incorporates many aspects of daily life and calculates how much we consume and how much waste we’re producing and compares those numbers to how quickly the Earth can absorb our waste and regenerate those resources. All of these variables are considered and a total is given in a number of Earths, which represents how many Earths it would take to support humanity if everyone lived by the same standards as you. After completing the surveys on both websites provided, I was surprised at many different things. I was shocked to learn that if everyone lived like the average American, we would need 5 Earths to support everybody, and I was a bit surprised at my own quiz results.
My personal ecological footprint was 2.5, a modest 50% of the average American’s footprint, but this is still unsatisfying to me. I know that my own footprint could be reduced significantly through simple lifestyle changes like taking shorter showers, recycling more glass and plastic, locally sourcing more foods and carpooling more often. It’s very unfortunate to know that so many people are living an unsustainable life. After examining my own behaviors I realize that I could change so many things to reduce my footprint, but there is a sad realization that millions of people are living way above their means and have much greater ecological footprints yet have no intentions of changing. This assignment has inspired me to make changes in my life to continue to reduce my ecological footprint.
According to MyFootprint.org my total ecological footpr...
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... the world is ready for the transformation to alternate fuel sources. Certain parts of the world that may be difficult to live in now will become completely unable to support life.
This assignment has made me feel much more enlightened on these topics, but it is also a very upsetting realization that the population of the world is going to continue harming Earth and eventually the land will be inhabitable. Just to think that there are endless ways that every single person could reduce their footprint yet they choose not to is incredibly irresponsible. I hope that this assignment ignites a fire in some of my peers because the only way change is going to happen is if people advocate for it. The vapid, obtuse values and beliefs shared by many individuals need to be addressed and altered in order to ever have the slightest chance of potentially achieving sustainability.
One starting point to reducing the amount of greenhouse gases that you release is to find your carbon footprint. The carbon
In Michael Pollan’s “Why Bother?” Pollan argues that each person can contribute to helping to the environment by erasing their carbon footprints. In my everyday life I experience the choice of driving my car to work or riding my bike. More often than not I choose to drive my car because it is the easier option. I, along with many other people, believe that my individual impact will not cause a larger impact on the global scale. In Pollan’s essay, he makes each person think about the effect they are leaving on the environment and how each person, as an individual, can change his ways before it is too late. Wendell Berry, a naturalist and well-respected and influential writer, was a key factor in recognition of the environmental crisis and how to solve the problem.
Sustainable living to reduce your personal footprint (n.d.). In WWF Global. Retrieved May 4, 2014, from
Human Footprint was a documentary about how much average Americans will consume throughout their lives. It covered everything from the diapers a child will wear to the amount of houses and cars a person will own in their lifetime. It gave the average amount consumed by each American in their lifetime, meaning some will use more of one thing, while others will use less. Certain items such as the amount of appliances and the types of food we eat were a great example of something that people probably did not realize had a huge effect on the world. While this gave great information about how much Americans really consume, it did little to address these problems. In fact, it seemed at times that they were not problems at all. The documentarian assumed that people watching would think consumption was a problem, but I am not sure that is the case with a majority of people. Another problem was the amount of time they wasted panning over the inflated amount of items consumed. Finally, they failed to challenge the viewer to change their lifestyle in even the most generically simple ways, such as using less when the opportunity comes.
While humans are becoming increasingly aware of the environmental issues that are occurring in the world, most human systems are still unsustainable. Being sustainable in a society means that humans treat Earth like it has a limited supply of resources that need to be carefully managed in order to prevent damage to the world around us (Chiras, D. D., 2016). So, being unsustainable is the opposite; when humans treat the world like they are dominant over it, as well as believing that the Earth has an unlimited supply of resources that should be consumed by humans. Human beliefs and practices influence unsustainability, which can, and often do, correspond with the root cause of the problem.
In my day to day life I have several habits that would be considered harmful to the environment. Throughout this paper I will discuss some of these habits and ways to fix them. The bad habits I have chosen to discuss are; leaving my phone charger plugged into the wall, purposely taking the long way home from work, always choosing to drink bottled water over tap, and using plastic bags at the market and falling asleep with the television on. I am going to discuss how each of these has a bad impact to the environment and how I can help reduce the damage done by these bad habits.
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.
The world in which we live in at the moment has become poisonous. It has been poisoned by the human species’ daily survival activities. Humans around the world have taken for granted the daily impact that we have on the natural world. It all boil down to each and every breath that we take. Each and every breath that we exhale releases poisonous chemicals into the atmosphere. Until when our existence becomes absent, the world will remain poisoned.
Have you ever stopped to take a look at your surrounding environment and see lots of grass and open space? Or maybe you live in an industrial city and see smog and lots of factories and buildings being built. Do you ever stop and consider the pollution in your environment and how you could be contributing to it. Today people seem to be much more concerned about their natural environment and have taken various steps to try and reduce their carbon footprints. Examples of this are that many of us choose to buy a more fuel efficient vehicle to drive back and forth to work every day or that more people today take the time to separate recyclables from actual trash. Even the government who usually only seems to want our money has
In conclusion, the impact I personally have on the planet has surprised me. My personal ecological footprint is much larger than I expected. However, there are measures I can take to drop my current consumption rate, such as altering my recycling choices, making better purchasing decisions, and adopting the reduce, reuse, and recycle concept throughout my household. By altering my habits and consumption rate, I can affect my local community tremendously in a positive way for the planet Earth.
When creating a working definition of a sustainable global environment there is a short definition and a long definition. The short of definition of a sustainable global environment is an environment in which all living things can co-exist together while having their essential needs to sustain life met. This definition, while ideal, is probably not realistic due to the fact that humans in many cases are not simply satisfied with living with only the essential needs that sustain life. That leads to the more realistic but complex definition of a sustainable global environment. This definition focuses on sustainability, stewardship, science, political policy and globalization. Sustainability focuses on not depleting needed resources. Stewardship is the moral framework in which our public and private actions are made. The science aspect of a sustainable global environment is the information that decisions, including mandated policy, are made on. The final aspect is globalization, which refers to the interconnectedness humans and the environment share with each other on a global level. Regardless of the definition that is used, the goal is the same, sustaining a high quality of life for all creatures while not exhausting the needed resources to do so.
Every day the world around us is changing ever so slightly in many different ways. Humans can affect the environment through our day to day lifestyle without even noticing the change. An ecological footprint is a measurement of how much a person uses the environment around them to live their life. This given measurement can help one to see their impact on the earth. It is an important tool to understand what actually a human does to change the habitat near them. My ecological footprint results gave me a perspective of how my daily life can impact the world I live in, as well as, how I as an individual can change my actions to make less waste on earth. It is also useful for each person to know their own ecological footprint since no one live
There are many things we need to change in society to become sustainable for future generations. One thing is for certain, we all need to do our part to contribute to this effort, and there is no time like the present to change our ways.
Many people assume that the environment is not in danger. They believe that as technology advances, we do not need to worry about renewing natural resources, recycling, and finding new ways to produce energy. They state that one person in the world does not make a large difference. In reality, each individual's contribution greatly affects our environment. Our natural resources are slowly disappearing, and we must work together to save them and the Earth from ruin.
Environmental sustainability is making decisions and taking actions in the interest of protecting the natural world, preserving the capability of the environment to support human life and ensuring that humans use the environment in a way that does not harm the environment. It also questions how economic development affects our environment vice versa.