Human Footprint, by National Geographic

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.

First off, the documentary stated its purpose by pointing out that it would show exactly how much Americans use, consume, and waste in their lifetime. The way the amounts of certain actions, such as showering, were portrayed was humorous to almost ludicrous. While it was funny to use little rubber ducks to show how many showers a person takes in their lifetime it was ludicrous that they felt they had to show a long river like formation built with all of the ducks. This was an effective strategy at first. However, as they went from pints of milk to loaves of bread it began to seem a little redundant. Taking a ...

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