Eco-footprint
| Are you living sustainably? How are you living compared to what the earth can provide and renew itself
for future generations of life? Your ecological footprint is the amount of land and energy it takes to support your way of life. In 1960 the human presence on earth was sustainable. Globally, we were using just 50% of earth's resources. Today we using about 25% more than is sustainable. Leaving about 12% of the biosphere for other species, at 100% capacity, the maximum human footprint would be 1.8 hectares available per person, or about 4 acres each. The ecological footprint of the average American is 9.6 hectares, about 22 acres. The average Canadian needs one third less, and the average Italian 55% less. World wide this overuse of earth's resources is leading to a degradation of all major ecosystems on earth, an average of about a 30% decline in over 1300 species of marine, freshwater, and terrestial species studied over the past 30 years. If we continue business as usual, we will be accumulating an ecological debt that will surely lead to overshoot of earth's capacity to renew itself and thus ecological collapse. To learn more about the global ecofootprint and what can be done to reverse this trend, download a pdf file of the World Wildlife Fund's Living Planet Report 2006 To learn more about your personal ecological footprint, go to the following websites. Each gives a slightly different perspective on your eco-footprint. Redefining Progress is an excellent sustainablitiy website and has a useful eco foot print calculator. Best Foot Forward is designed for the United Kingdom, but is simple to use and gives good graphic results. To learn more about your carbon footprint, link to the Cool It Campaign. (This site is occasionally unavailable. Try again the next day.) To find local options for mitigation your carbon footprint check out Appalachian Offsets. |
