Personal Narrative: The Breakdown Of My Ecological Footprint

Ecological footprint helps us understand human pressure on the planet. It compares human demand with the planet Earth’s ecological capacity to regenerate it is important to change our lifestyles in order to lead a fulfilling life without degrading the environment.

In order for sustainable development to be achieved, humans need to reduce their effect on the environment by consuming less in terms of resources, and living more lightly on the planet. As difficult as this may sound, there are a number of ways in which this is easily achievable. One of the most effective ways to do this is to alter the way in which we function day-to-day, and to begin to change our homes to make them more efficient in terms of resources. In addition, sustainability is not only about ensuring a future in which we can sustain our society without impacting negatively on our environment, but also but ensuring that everyone can have access to this. Therefore we must look at the triple-bottom line approach and align our movement towards sustainable development with this.

The ecological quizzes asked about individual behaviors relating to transportation, energy, food, recycling, pollution, and possessions. Essentially, all behaviors mentioned in the quizzes have some sort of impact on the environment. Both quizzes asked about what type of transportation was most frequently used and also about solar energy. In addition, the quizzes focused on how much you eat and what you eat. These certain behaviors are featured in the quizzes because they have the potential to contribute to a carbon, or ecological footprint. This “footprint” is one’s impact on the environment. One’s impact on the environment is made up of small decisions--either positive or negative--over his or her lifetime. These decisions can include: choosing

You will use the EPA’s household emissions calculator to quantitatively identify three to five everyday products or practices that contribute most to your footprint and identify measurable solutions to each. That is, you will estimate savings of both carbon emissions and money that can be achieved via the solutions. In the study questions, reflect upon your results and relate them to themes covered in Contemporary Environmental Issues.

While reading Colin Beavan’s No Impact Man, I had a bit of a sour taste in my mouth. One of my underlying thoughts throughout the whole book was, “Well damn, I am so sure I would never, ever, be able to do most of this in my life.” In all honesty, it at first made me feel kind of bad about how I lived; it made me feel as though I did not do enough for the environment and thought only of myself. The first thing that came to mind when I learned what this book was even about was a short online quiz of sorts. The purpose of the quiz was to determine how many planet Earth’s we would need if everyone on Earth lived how I did. My result was that over five planets would be needed. This made me think about how while I was using over five

My initial Ecological Footprint done on May 25,2016 If everyone on the planet lived like me we would need 5.7 Earths to provide enough resources. It takes 25.4 acres ignorer to support my lifestyle. In order to drop my footprint by 0.4 I decided to only eat meat once a week and also to recycle daily items that I use for example water bottles and other plastics I also plan to car pool or maybe even walk to places when I can the following places I would most likely car pool or walk to would be library, gacory store, family events, park, and also the gym all these places are pretty close to me living in the Macedonia community.

[1] [source:"What is a carbon footprint?". Archived from the original on 11May 2009. Retrieved 2009-

Freshman year of high school I joined the Environmental Club. It started out with just five members who would do the school's recycling. With over 2,500 student and faculty members at my school, it was like doing the recycling for a small community. While recycling is great, our club wanted to make a larger impact in our town. We have since started volunteering at the local watershed to educate kids on important environmental issues, created no-idling campaigns, hosted multiple environmentally friendly concerts, and are working on getting solar panels put on the schools in our district. The Environmental Club now has over 25 active members. Through the growth of Environmental Club, I realized many students are interested in protecting our environment,

There was very many trials and events during this time, so much so I could write a book so this is really only the tip of the tip of the iceburg.

The Ecological Footprint quiz I took said that if everyone on the planet lived my lifestyle, we would need 3.95 Earths. The average acres of consumption in the United States for Carbon, Food, Housing, and Goods and Services are 91.43, 65.74, 31.58, and 57.66 respectively. My score for Carbon, Food, Housing, and Goods and Services are 36.48, 65.73, 25.35, and 25.78 respectively. My Footprint share by pastureland, marine fisheries, forestland, and cropland biomes was 27.96%, 20.29%, 39.28% and 12.47%. The forest biome provides wood and paper (packaging and houses), the marine biome provides seafood, farm animals graze on pastures and fruits and vegetables are grown in cropland.

The two areas that would be impossible to decrease my ecological footprint are (1) goods and (2) mobility. I rarely buy new clothes, furniture, appliances, and technology, so improving this area would be difficult. Similarly, I only drive my car when necessary and ride my bicycle or Tiger Transit as much as possible, so decreasing my footprint in this area would also be

provide sufficient resource. My Ecological Footprint shows that food has the biggest impact on it, so

The plastic cup is a luxury item, which means I don’t need it. It can be replaced by a glass cup. The amount of luxury items I found were concerning and should be taken care of by thinking what I buy based on packaging. I also noticed that other items such as fruit peels and skins could be put into a compost. While doing everyday activities such as using electricity and gas, and other activities such as eating meat and other locally grown vegetation, I would need about 4.4 earths to sustain my lifestyle. I would need 19.7 global acres of productive land to support my lifestyle. While taking the quiz, I saw that pork is a major meat in an American’s life. Our lives as Muslims does not permit us to consume pork, which decreases the amount of land I would need to be able to live. Upon realizing that all the things I do and buy affect the earth in either a positive or negative way, I put some products I use on goodguide.com. The hair conditioner I use is rated a 5.9 on a scale to 10. The “company's environmental policies, practices, and performance place it among the best 25% of companies rated by GoodGuide.” The “company's social policies, practices and performance place it among the best 10% of companies rated by

This essay reviews my personal carbon footprint and discusses ways to manage it and reduce some of the biggest areas of my resource consumption. The footprint calculator that I used required that I answer a series of questions about my consumption habits, and based on the answers I provided, showed the impact of my lifestyle on the planet. The footprint calculator uses data for selected countries, based on National Footprint Accounts. The online calculator asked questions to determine how to distribute the ecological footprint into different categories based on the country's average consumption profile. In addition to calculating the amount of carbon a person is responsible for through their daily activities, the calculator also estimated a total ecological footprint to represent the amount of land and sea area required to provide the resources a person needs and to absorb their carbon emissions.

In order to be an integral part in saving the Earth’s environment and ensuring resources for future generations, the way individuals live needs to change. Being fortunate enough to reside in one of the nation’s most developed countries, I wanted to make sure the way I have been living has been meeting the standards set by sustainable living. Using the overall environmental footprint provided by Global Footprint Network, I was able to pinpoint the areas in my life that needed to improve in order for me to be more sustainable. I chose to use this Footprint calculator because it gives you a breakdown on how many resources from the planet are needed in order to provide for your living standards. Once you have input the information, the calculator provides a general ecological footprint explanation and gives real case scenarios in which you can do to reduce it. The results for my footprint were as follows: If everyone were to live the way I do, we would need 5.3 planet earths to provide enough resources. It would take 23.6 global acres of land for energy production, which would emit 23.6 tons of carbon dioxide, and the biggest impacts on my personal footprint included 36 percent of services, 21 percent food and 19 percent mobility.