I liked the exercise, but at the same time my results surprised me. The ecological footprint measures how much you demand of the Earth’s ecosystem, and if everyone lived like that how Earths would be needed to sustain everyone. If everyone in the world consumed as much as me, the Earth’s resources would soon be depleted (as my results were 4.2 planets with 26.6 global hectares). The result of a Sudanese farmer may be different in that the lifestyle between us is different. For example, my family lives in Toronto, which means I have to fly back often in order to visit them (this in end increases my Ecological Footprint). The Sudanese Farmer may have a smaller Ecological Footprint than I for this, and many other reasons. However, I do have choices. For example, my household could try to cook vegetarian meals and be energy efficient by turning down the thermostat in the winter. Nevertheless, the Ecological Footprint calculator gave very surprising results for me to think about.
This exercise was definitely thought-provoking as, even just living in a nation like Canada, where there is a certain standard of living, puts us well above needing one Earth to support the global population. Even though I don’t generally think of myself as a particularly huge consumer, I still got a result of 3.4 planets. There was a number of things that had a huge impact on my number of global hectares that surprised me. For instance, buying organic foods decreases global hectares substantially and air travel increases ecological footprint substantially. This exercise will definitely make we think more about the little things that I do that could have a huge impact on my footprint.
This exercise was very interesting as I learned that I leave a pretty big footprint although I don’t drive and commute almost everywhere. However, my downfall is my food and housing footprint. I ended up with a result of 4.92 planets! My diet consists of meat, seafood and vegetables but I often have 2 large meals a day with small snacks in between. My mind and body will only function if I have food in my belly. Housing-wise, I live in a pretty old townhouse so it doesn’t run on anything that’s energy-efficient. Neither is it built with sustainably harvested wood thus, the footprint there resulted much higher. If everyone consumed as much as me, the earth’s resources will be depleted fast.
The Sudanese farmer will probably have a much smaller footprint than I because he grows his own food! That means increasing the amount of organic food consumed rather than going to the supermarket and buying food. Also the temperature in Sudan is much higher than Vancouver’s; as a result, there is no need to heat up water or to heat the house during the winter months.
This is a good exercise to do, and one that I have done many times. Through the many times I have completed this exercise, I have always received around the same number of Earth’s (4.5). I am living in a basement suite in an older part part of town. It is hard to say how much heat is used or if things are energy efficient as we don’t really have control over them. A big part of my footprint has to do with my diet as I eat meat or fish or diary in every meal each day. It is hard to have a smaller footprint because of the standard of living we have in Vancouver as well. In that case, the Sudanese farmer would have a muc smaller footprint than I would as he would most likely grow all of his own foot. He would not have to buy food from any supermarket or store, and he would not have to travel anywhere get his food. But, the farmer doesn’t really have a choice of his life style, meanwhile I do. Things can be done to reduce my footprint, like turning off computers and lights and doing less laundry. I think that my results in this exercise would be much different I am had a different diet, but I love food!.
The exercise was definitely thought provoking. I did not realize how much of an effect my diet had on my ecological footprint, and it seems that many of you had a similar reaction. I was surprised that my carbon footprint was not larger, I drive to school a couple time a week but since Wikipedia tells me BC gets ~86% of its power from hydro it ended up being lower than I expected. I’m a little surprised that eating organic food reduces a footprint as much as it does. I’m sure there are upstream (and downstream) effects due to an industrialized food system but I would have expected that GMO’s and other food technologies would offer the ability to make more efficient use of the land available on this planet.
This is a great exercise to make people think about their consumption and how much of an impact our lifestyle choices have on the environment. I think the biggest thing that affects my ecological footprint is transportation. I grew up in New Mexico, lived in Barcelona last year, and now am living in Vancouver so flying to and from those places puts an immense strain on our environment. My food consumption also affects my ecological footprint. It is sometimes difficult to buy organic foods on a limited budget. A Sudanese farmer would definitely have more sustainable consumption patterns and a smaller ecological footprint.
I was really suprised that my footprint came out so low on this calculator. Although I do try really hard to minimize my footprint in every area of my life, I do fly from the UK back to Canada once a year and I thought this pretty much destroyed all my other efforts. I’m not sure whether to trust the calculation but it is nice to feel that all my other choices do translate into something. Also, because lack of money is so often used as an excuse for not being environmental, it did please me to realize that my home, with its super low footprint (made with local, sustainable wood and local sheeps wool and powered by wind), only cost around 4000 pounds to make. We have more choices than we are aware of.
I felt as you did Kate. I fly between Montreal and Vancouver several times a year and am generally concerned about that substantial footprint. I was excited to score so low on the exercise (considering I have three children) but I have my doubts about the accuracy of the calculations. For a family of five, I think it would require a more detailed, manually derived formula. One thing is for certain, I have big plans to put the kids to work this spring and doubly expand our backyard garden. That oughtta wipe out a footprint or two. In my Montreal suburb organic produce is not nearly as popular, and therefore accessible, as in Vancouver. I miss a lot of things about BC but the people’s interest in sustainable living is the thing I miss most!
Over the years I’ve done this exercise a few times and it’s always around 3-4 Earths. My result this time, 3.3 Earths is one of my lower scores and that is a reflection of some changes our family has made at home and especially since I became a student with a UPass (Yay for UPass! and not knowing how to drive). I feel okay about the result because I feel that the little changes we’ve been making do contribute to the lower score but obviously, we still only have 1 planet. The ecological footprint, measuring the demand of Earth’s ecosystem from our behaviour (both in producing what we consume and removing the wastes from our consumption). The implication of the result that the calculator gives is that the planet’s ecosystem is stable but in reality, nature and the whole system (including humans) is unstable and my action might take 5 Earths instead of 3 tomorrow! As well, obviously not everyone on the planet is going to have the same ecological footprint-some may be higher and some may be lower. A Sudanese farmer will have a smaller ecological footprint. Unlike us, the farmer may not have a lot of choices to alter his/her ecological footprint due to a variety of things. However, even though we have a lot of choices, sometimes we do not make the best decisions because we are limited by money, habits that are hard to break and time.
I’m rated at a whopping 5.12 earths, but this isn’t all that surprising to me since I live in a relatively large single-family home with my family. I know that in the future when I move into an apartment, my footprint will be smaller. Of course, not everyone on the planet could possibly fit into their own single family home in a family of 4, and this wouldn’t be the lifestyle I’d live most places that I’d move to. This in some ways goes back to the idea of a rising middle class for developing countries, where everyone wants to have a house, a car, and 2.3 kids who go to college.
This was a fun exercise. I’m surprised by how low my result was, but I guess considering I’m living as a student in a tiny place with a upass that changes things. And even then we need almost triple the amount of earths we already have for the whole world to continue to live the way I do. It’s a scary thought. If we were all able to get back to simpler ways of life these would obviously drop, most likely to a sustainable number.
This activity was very interesting. Although I am a little ashamed of my results – 6.8 Earths, most of my contributions came from driving and air travel. Living about 45 mins away from Vancouver and having to drive all the way to UBC is one of the reasons why my results were so high. Additionally, I often visit my family overseas and a 13 hour flight does contribute a lot of carbon. I have been very sustainable in other aspects, however, realizing that I need 6.8 Earths, I need to do more. Air travel can heavily damage the environment, however, it is one of the only means for those who need to travel overseas. I try to fly with airlines that promote sustainability via upgrading airplanes and having programs that offset carbon. My next goal is reduce the driving but transit out east of Vancouver is pretty scarce.
I consistently got much lower than the national average with the exception of the food footprint. Despite this, I still managed to get more than a couple earths. This may be a bit naive, but I didn’t think it would be that large. Considering how much lower I was compared to the national average, I’m a little concerned. I think what this shows me, if anything, is that even changing small things about our lifestyle can accumulate to make relatively large reductions in our footprints. I feel as though increasing education about these changes, or even creating regulations for some, so that every person lowers their footprint, would greatly help our situation.
I love calculating my carbon footprint for two reasons – it always shocks me into renewed action (immediately turning off unnecessary lights etc etc) and it provokes conversation and discussion in the house I live in. I live with 6 other people in a 4 bedroom house, and we all have such diverse opinions and beliefs. What I love about the carbon calculator is that it gives the individual responsibility. It says “look this is what YOU do” – not your government, your country, your gas company – YOU. And I think it is this agency that helps people (especially those who already care slightly about climate issues and the environment) makes changes and take action.
It was surprising how many earths my lifestyle requires living in a rancher-style house on a 7700sq. ft. lot. I commute to UBC each day via car though from North Van, and my parents commute to Burnaby and Coquitlam for work so that adds up. We added up to 5.41 earths! Even though I was above the country average for food, goods and services, and housing footprint, my hectare use for carbon was over 10 hectares below average. If my lifestyle was true for the world it would be disastrous… A Sudanese farmer is most likely given less options regarding lifestyle choices – so naturally their consumption levels are probably lower and footprint would be less. It is also possible, however, that the few options they are left with seriously impact the environment, where in some cases I may be able to pick an alternative. For example, a Sudanese farmer may only have chemical fertilizers that are degrading to the environment, but a North American farmer may have access to organic ones.
As a student I don’t consume as much as if I owned a house or car. The biggest contributor to my footprint is food. I could reduce my footprint considerably if I relied more on local produce rather than processed and packaged foods. I am not surprised that my lifestyle would consume several earths, given the discrepancies between the affluences of developed and undeveloped countries. In third world countries there is a much greater awareness of the cost of things such as electricity, heating, water and foreign products. Due to our privileged position in the first world, we can afford to be much more wasteful in the interest of pleasure or convenience. Regardless, there are many ways I could strive to reduce my environmental footprint voluntarily.
I was disappointed to have 5 Earths as my result. The only thing I have that is above the national average is my food consumption and that is probably because most of what I eat comes from the supermarket. As a student on a budget though, I hope that will remedy itself after. Is my lifestyle unsustainable for the world? Unfortunately it is. What I am curious about is, can we ever go back to living under “one earth” levels without taking down aspects of our society (Superstore and Futureshop comes to mind for some reason).
I have used the second calculation method provided, and I ended up with 1.41 planets (I see this as a pretty big number, but when I was reading other’s comment it seems to be a fair size already). Because I am currently living in Canada as an international student, I used the data when I am living in my home country instead. I think this is a really meaningful exercise that this definitely helps me to reflect and review more aspects that I can work on daily to lessen the burden of resources. Although I feel that I am somehow environmentally friendly, I definitely think that I can work much better than this. I found that most of my footprint is spent on goods and services that I feel that I should consider improving my lifestyle as a whole.
The ecological footprint is measuring different aspects of a person’s living style and condition in order to find out how much the individual is consuming the Earth’s resources. I guess if everyone consumed as much as me, I guess the Earth might still suffer from the effects individuals bring (however I am feeling great about myself walking and commuting through public transit all the time after doing the exercise).
I guess if a Sudanese farmer might have a much smaller ecological footprint than I do. One thing I found the second calculation less accurate because most of the options are North American based, and I am assuming that many of the options not applicable to people living in other countries, for instance, the Sudanese farmer. Some options like “what kind of energy saving options, like insulation blinds etc, are applied to your housing” may not apply to countries in different climate zones; I found these options may give the calculation a less accurate result of the size of footprint is, depending on countries. Yet considering all these, I guess a Sudanese farmer will still have a much smaller footprint than I do because they definitely have much less choices in consumption and spendings than I do. They for sure are travelling mostly by themselves instead of any sorts of transportation means, and have very limited choice of energy (mostly wood instead of natural gas or electricity I expect).
Reactions – I really realize how many aspects to sustainable living there are! And yes as I do take some of them into consideration there was many that I had never thought of! (For example the water aspect etc.) Part of this aspect (not to make excuses…) is living in an older apartment building where none of these things were taken into consideration upon building and myself, being a renter are not willing to install myself (such as a low flush toilet.)
Thankfully I was still far below the average consumption of Canada. I think this is because I don’t own a car (even though I flew allover the world last year!), and that I eat an organic plant based diet, so I did score better in those aspects. I did a bit worse in housing and goods and services footprint. In total we would need 1.64 planets if everyone lived the way I do.
This website is a great tool to track your consumption and make goals for yourself (and your family) in the future. Then you are able to compare how your global footprint has changed overtime and they also give you some resources to learn why some habits (that you may not have considered important) are more beneficial than others.
I’m not really sure how accurate mine was, I still live at home I had to guess a lot of the answers. But if it was accurate then I have some adjustments to make!! My carbon footprint was way above the countries average, which (I am ashamed to say) I’m not too suprised about.
I used the second method and was rather surprised when I got 4.92 planets. It was much higher than I expected. However, it is rather useful and makes a convincing point that I should think more about reducing about reducing my carbon footprint.
I used the second calculater (the first one didn’t work) and got 2.26 earths. I’ve done a few of these in the past and I found this one a bit challenging to use – it asks for your travel distances for a year whereas a lot of others do per week so I had to do a bit of estimating. I think the answer is pretty reasonable – it’s no doubt hard to get much lower than that when living in a country such as Canada.
It’s a bit frustrating to hear that I consume so much though because I can’t think of many things I could do to reduce my impact – I live with my boyfriend in a basement suite, we both use public transportation to get everywhere, get the majority of our groceries delivered from Spud (they have organic/local products).
I think one of the main things we could do is maybe move into a higher density neighbourhood or an apartment. Also dividing up our garbage more diligently – making sure that recyclables are recycled and food wastes are composted.
I enjoyed finding my ecological footprint, as I also see interesting other posts which talk about their footprint increasing by visiting their home town, even if this was just once a year. Others also talk about failing to recycle some electronics or any other random item out from their garbage; something that helped too increase their numbers on their footprint.
For me all this was at the same time frustrating and revealing. At first it was frustrating because I think I do take the effort and look to what I buy is not entirely from industrial producers (food, clothes among others), or conversely, I think I conduct myself with frugal habits in order to not waste unnecessary amounts of food or other things I know from beforehand they will be wasted.
However, given the results, that tells me in case I want to continue with my lifestyle I would need 2.5 planets Earth. This is a revealing fact that urges me to modify my habits and think twice what I buy. Perhaps this involves also a change in my lifestyle…
This exercise is thought provoking and makes me think about the environmental impacts more as an individual responsibility. This exercise explores the everyday activities of an individual that contributes to the “usage” of the earth’s capacity, including choice of food, housing, transportation, and many other details of life choices. The result I got was that if everyone lived my lifestyle, 3.26 earths would be need. The result is quite shocking and I realize that a little difference in lifestyle of each individual can make a significant change in the environment.
My ecological foot print is 3.5 which tells me how much land and resources (in hectares) is needed to support my current life style. My ecological foot print is much greater than the world average and this worries me to know that I others that score less have to take on the damages that I have caused from my current consumption patterns. I have to take action in changing my lifestyle since there are people who are able to live life in a more sustainable way and taking on the responsibility of controlling climate change.
I was shocked by the results. I understood before the exercise that the results would likely surprise me but I never expected that my roomate and I have consumption habits that would require 3.6 planets to support us if the world population shared our habits. Our consumption habits utilize 15.3 global hectares of productive land. Food (27%) was our largest footprint followed closely by services. I find this data to be rather alarming and I plan on following some of the suggested steps to reduce our footprint. I’m going to show this calculator to others because I think many people take for granted the significance of their actions impact on the environment.
brenden, 
kimzzzy, 
yitailiu, and 23 others are discussing.
sharonshi 5:06 pm on January 19, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I liked the exercise, but at the same time my results surprised me. The ecological footprint measures how much you demand of the Earth’s ecosystem, and if everyone lived like that how Earths would be needed to sustain everyone. If everyone in the world consumed as much as me, the Earth’s resources would soon be depleted (as my results were 4.2 planets with 26.6 global hectares). The result of a Sudanese farmer may be different in that the lifestyle between us is different. For example, my family lives in Toronto, which means I have to fly back often in order to visit them (this in end increases my Ecological Footprint). The Sudanese Farmer may have a smaller Ecological Footprint than I for this, and many other reasons. However, I do have choices. For example, my household could try to cook vegetarian meals and be energy efficient by turning down the thermostat in the winter. Nevertheless, the Ecological Footprint calculator gave very surprising results for me to think about.
msmith92 2:26 pm on January 21, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
This exercise was definitely thought-provoking as, even just living in a nation like Canada, where there is a certain standard of living, puts us well above needing one Earth to support the global population. Even though I don’t generally think of myself as a particularly huge consumer, I still got a result of 3.4 planets. There was a number of things that had a huge impact on my number of global hectares that surprised me. For instance, buying organic foods decreases global hectares substantially and air travel increases ecological footprint substantially. This exercise will definitely make we think more about the little things that I do that could have a huge impact on my footprint.
nytsuen 2:04 pm on January 22, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
This exercise was very interesting as I learned that I leave a pretty big footprint although I don’t drive and commute almost everywhere. However, my downfall is my food and housing footprint. I ended up with a result of 4.92 planets! My diet consists of meat, seafood and vegetables but I often have 2 large meals a day with small snacks in between. My mind and body will only function if I have food in my belly. Housing-wise, I live in a pretty old townhouse so it doesn’t run on anything that’s energy-efficient. Neither is it built with sustainably harvested wood thus, the footprint there resulted much higher. If everyone consumed as much as me, the earth’s resources will be depleted fast.
The Sudanese farmer will probably have a much smaller footprint than I because he grows his own food! That means increasing the amount of organic food consumed rather than going to the supermarket and buying food. Also the temperature in Sudan is much higher than Vancouver’s; as a result, there is no need to heat up water or to heat the house during the winter months.
Keaton Briscoe 2:27 pm on January 23, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
This is a good exercise to do, and one that I have done many times. Through the many times I have completed this exercise, I have always received around the same number of Earth’s (4.5). I am living in a basement suite in an older part part of town. It is hard to say how much heat is used or if things are energy efficient as we don’t really have control over them. A big part of my footprint has to do with my diet as I eat meat or fish or diary in every meal each day. It is hard to have a smaller footprint because of the standard of living we have in Vancouver as well. In that case, the Sudanese farmer would have a muc smaller footprint than I would as he would most likely grow all of his own foot. He would not have to buy food from any supermarket or store, and he would not have to travel anywhere get his food. But, the farmer doesn’t really have a choice of his life style, meanwhile I do. Things can be done to reduce my footprint, like turning off computers and lights and doing less laundry. I think that my results in this exercise would be much different I am had a different diet, but I love food!.
bgibson 5:15 pm on January 23, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
The exercise was definitely thought provoking. I did not realize how much of an effect my diet had on my ecological footprint, and it seems that many of you had a similar reaction. I was surprised that my carbon footprint was not larger, I drive to school a couple time a week but since Wikipedia tells me BC gets ~86% of its power from hydro it ended up being lower than I expected. I’m a little surprised that eating organic food reduces a footprint as much as it does. I’m sure there are upstream (and downstream) effects due to an industrialized food system but I would have expected that GMO’s and other food technologies would offer the ability to make more efficient use of the land available on this planet.
emilym 7:54 pm on January 23, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
This is a great exercise to make people think about their consumption and how much of an impact our lifestyle choices have on the environment. I think the biggest thing that affects my ecological footprint is transportation. I grew up in New Mexico, lived in Barcelona last year, and now am living in Vancouver so flying to and from those places puts an immense strain on our environment. My food consumption also affects my ecological footprint. It is sometimes difficult to buy organic foods on a limited budget. A Sudanese farmer would definitely have more sustainable consumption patterns and a smaller ecological footprint.
katehaxt 2:04 pm on January 24, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I was really suprised that my footprint came out so low on this calculator. Although I do try really hard to minimize my footprint in every area of my life, I do fly from the UK back to Canada once a year and I thought this pretty much destroyed all my other efforts. I’m not sure whether to trust the calculation but it is nice to feel that all my other choices do translate into something. Also, because lack of money is so often used as an excuse for not being environmental, it did please me to realize that my home, with its super low footprint (made with local, sustainable wood and local sheeps wool and powered by wind), only cost around 4000 pounds to make. We have more choices than we are aware of.
youngblutt 8:03 pm on January 24, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I felt as you did Kate. I fly between Montreal and Vancouver several times a year and am generally concerned about that substantial footprint. I was excited to score so low on the exercise (considering I have three children) but I have my doubts about the accuracy of the calculations. For a family of five, I think it would require a more detailed, manually derived formula. One thing is for certain, I have big plans to put the kids to work this spring and doubly expand our backyard garden. That oughtta wipe out a footprint or two. In my Montreal suburb organic produce is not nearly as popular, and therefore accessible, as in Vancouver. I miss a lot of things about BC but the people’s interest in sustainable living is the thing I miss most!
jlin 11:00 pm on January 24, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Over the years I’ve done this exercise a few times and it’s always around 3-4 Earths. My result this time, 3.3 Earths is one of my lower scores and that is a reflection of some changes our family has made at home and especially since I became a student with a UPass (Yay for UPass! and not knowing how to drive). I feel okay about the result because I feel that the little changes we’ve been making do contribute to the lower score but obviously, we still only have 1 planet. The ecological footprint, measuring the demand of Earth’s ecosystem from our behaviour (both in producing what we consume and removing the wastes from our consumption). The implication of the result that the calculator gives is that the planet’s ecosystem is stable but in reality, nature and the whole system (including humans) is unstable and my action might take 5 Earths instead of 3 tomorrow! As well, obviously not everyone on the planet is going to have the same ecological footprint-some may be higher and some may be lower. A Sudanese farmer will have a smaller ecological footprint. Unlike us, the farmer may not have a lot of choices to alter his/her ecological footprint due to a variety of things. However, even though we have a lot of choices, sometimes we do not make the best decisions because we are limited by money, habits that are hard to break and time.
roypat 2:50 am on January 25, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I’m rated at a whopping 5.12 earths, but this isn’t all that surprising to me since I live in a relatively large single-family home with my family. I know that in the future when I move into an apartment, my footprint will be smaller. Of course, not everyone on the planet could possibly fit into their own single family home in a family of 4, and this wouldn’t be the lifestyle I’d live most places that I’d move to. This in some ways goes back to the idea of a rising middle class for developing countries, where everyone wants to have a house, a car, and 2.3 kids who go to college.
paige 8:10 pm on January 25, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
This was a fun exercise. I’m surprised by how low my result was, but I guess considering I’m living as a student in a tiny place with a upass that changes things. And even then we need almost triple the amount of earths we already have for the whole world to continue to live the way I do. It’s a scary thought. If we were all able to get back to simpler ways of life these would obviously drop, most likely to a sustainable number.
tsung 12:53 am on January 26, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
This activity was very interesting. Although I am a little ashamed of my results – 6.8 Earths, most of my contributions came from driving and air travel. Living about 45 mins away from Vancouver and having to drive all the way to UBC is one of the reasons why my results were so high. Additionally, I often visit my family overseas and a 13 hour flight does contribute a lot of carbon. I have been very sustainable in other aspects, however, realizing that I need 6.8 Earths, I need to do more. Air travel can heavily damage the environment, however, it is one of the only means for those who need to travel overseas. I try to fly with airlines that promote sustainability via upgrading airplanes and having programs that offset carbon. My next goal is reduce the driving but transit out east of Vancouver is pretty scarce.
jaydee 1:38 am on January 26, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I consistently got much lower than the national average with the exception of the food footprint. Despite this, I still managed to get more than a couple earths. This may be a bit naive, but I didn’t think it would be that large. Considering how much lower I was compared to the national average, I’m a little concerned. I think what this shows me, if anything, is that even changing small things about our lifestyle can accumulate to make relatively large reductions in our footprints. I feel as though increasing education about these changes, or even creating regulations for some, so that every person lowers their footprint, would greatly help our situation.
jenniefrench 4:16 pm on January 26, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I love calculating my carbon footprint for two reasons – it always shocks me into renewed action (immediately turning off unnecessary lights etc etc) and it provokes conversation and discussion in the house I live in. I live with 6 other people in a 4 bedroom house, and we all have such diverse opinions and beliefs. What I love about the carbon calculator is that it gives the individual responsibility. It says “look this is what YOU do” – not your government, your country, your gas company – YOU. And I think it is this agency that helps people (especially those who already care slightly about climate issues and the environment) makes changes and take action.
lcoulthard 7:42 pm on January 26, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
It was surprising how many earths my lifestyle requires living in a rancher-style house on a 7700sq. ft. lot. I commute to UBC each day via car though from North Van, and my parents commute to Burnaby and Coquitlam for work so that adds up. We added up to 5.41 earths! Even though I was above the country average for food, goods and services, and housing footprint, my hectare use for carbon was over 10 hectares below average. If my lifestyle was true for the world it would be disastrous… A Sudanese farmer is most likely given less options regarding lifestyle choices – so naturally their consumption levels are probably lower and footprint would be less. It is also possible, however, that the few options they are left with seriously impact the environment, where in some cases I may be able to pick an alternative. For example, a Sudanese farmer may only have chemical fertilizers that are degrading to the environment, but a North American farmer may have access to organic ones.
hoskinso 9:31 pm on January 26, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
As a student I don’t consume as much as if I owned a house or car. The biggest contributor to my footprint is food. I could reduce my footprint considerably if I relied more on local produce rather than processed and packaged foods. I am not surprised that my lifestyle would consume several earths, given the discrepancies between the affluences of developed and undeveloped countries. In third world countries there is a much greater awareness of the cost of things such as electricity, heating, water and foreign products. Due to our privileged position in the first world, we can afford to be much more wasteful in the interest of pleasure or convenience. Regardless, there are many ways I could strive to reduce my environmental footprint voluntarily.
jonl 9:59 pm on January 26, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I was disappointed to have 5 Earths as my result. The only thing I have that is above the national average is my food consumption and that is probably because most of what I eat comes from the supermarket. As a student on a budget though, I hope that will remedy itself after. Is my lifestyle unsustainable for the world? Unfortunately it is. What I am curious about is, can we ever go back to living under “one earth” levels without taking down aspects of our society (Superstore and Futureshop comes to mind for some reason).
midara 11:28 pm on January 26, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I have used the second calculation method provided, and I ended up with 1.41 planets (I see this as a pretty big number, but when I was reading other’s comment it seems to be a fair size already). Because I am currently living in Canada as an international student, I used the data when I am living in my home country instead. I think this is a really meaningful exercise that this definitely helps me to reflect and review more aspects that I can work on daily to lessen the burden of resources. Although I feel that I am somehow environmentally friendly, I definitely think that I can work much better than this. I found that most of my footprint is spent on goods and services that I feel that I should consider improving my lifestyle as a whole.
The ecological footprint is measuring different aspects of a person’s living style and condition in order to find out how much the individual is consuming the Earth’s resources. I guess if everyone consumed as much as me, I guess the Earth might still suffer from the effects individuals bring (however I am feeling great about myself walking and commuting through public transit all the time after doing the exercise).
I guess if a Sudanese farmer might have a much smaller ecological footprint than I do. One thing I found the second calculation less accurate because most of the options are North American based, and I am assuming that many of the options not applicable to people living in other countries, for instance, the Sudanese farmer. Some options like “what kind of energy saving options, like insulation blinds etc, are applied to your housing” may not apply to countries in different climate zones; I found these options may give the calculation a less accurate result of the size of footprint is, depending on countries. Yet considering all these, I guess a Sudanese farmer will still have a much smaller footprint than I do because they definitely have much less choices in consumption and spendings than I do. They for sure are travelling mostly by themselves instead of any sorts of transportation means, and have very limited choice of energy (mostly wood instead of natural gas or electricity I expect).
erikaw 1:07 pm on January 27, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Reactions – I really realize how many aspects to sustainable living there are! And yes as I do take some of them into consideration there was many that I had never thought of! (For example the water aspect etc.) Part of this aspect (not to make excuses…) is living in an older apartment building where none of these things were taken into consideration upon building and myself, being a renter are not willing to install myself (such as a low flush toilet.)
Thankfully I was still far below the average consumption of Canada. I think this is because I don’t own a car (even though I flew allover the world last year!), and that I eat an organic plant based diet, so I did score better in those aspects. I did a bit worse in housing and goods and services footprint. In total we would need 1.64 planets if everyone lived the way I do.
This website is a great tool to track your consumption and make goals for yourself (and your family) in the future. Then you are able to compare how your global footprint has changed overtime and they also give you some resources to learn why some habits (that you may not have considered important) are more beneficial than others.
sampethick 1:53 pm on January 28, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I’m not really sure how accurate mine was, I still live at home I had to guess a lot of the answers. But if it was accurate then I have some adjustments to make!! My carbon footprint was way above the countries average, which (I am ashamed to say) I’m not too suprised about.
phoebe 4:14 pm on January 29, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I used the second method and was rather surprised when I got 4.92 planets. It was much higher than I expected. However, it is rather useful and makes a convincing point that I should think more about reducing about reducing my carbon footprint.
natashap 9:42 pm on January 29, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I used the second calculater (the first one didn’t work) and got 2.26 earths. I’ve done a few of these in the past and I found this one a bit challenging to use – it asks for your travel distances for a year whereas a lot of others do per week so I had to do a bit of estimating. I think the answer is pretty reasonable – it’s no doubt hard to get much lower than that when living in a country such as Canada.
It’s a bit frustrating to hear that I consume so much though because I can’t think of many things I could do to reduce my impact – I live with my boyfriend in a basement suite, we both use public transportation to get everywhere, get the majority of our groceries delivered from Spud (they have organic/local products).
I think one of the main things we could do is maybe move into a higher density neighbourhood or an apartment. Also dividing up our garbage more diligently – making sure that recyclables are recycled and food wastes are composted.
alyumam 12:59 am on January 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I enjoyed finding my ecological footprint, as I also see interesting other posts which talk about their footprint increasing by visiting their home town, even if this was just once a year. Others also talk about failing to recycle some electronics or any other random item out from their garbage; something that helped too increase their numbers on their footprint.
For me all this was at the same time frustrating and revealing. At first it was frustrating because I think I do take the effort and look to what I buy is not entirely from industrial producers (food, clothes among others), or conversely, I think I conduct myself with frugal habits in order to not waste unnecessary amounts of food or other things I know from beforehand they will be wasted.
However, given the results, that tells me in case I want to continue with my lifestyle I would need 2.5 planets Earth. This is a revealing fact that urges me to modify my habits and think twice what I buy. Perhaps this involves also a change in my lifestyle…
yitailiu 3:32 am on January 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
This exercise is thought provoking and makes me think about the environmental impacts more as an individual responsibility. This exercise explores the everyday activities of an individual that contributes to the “usage” of the earth’s capacity, including choice of food, housing, transportation, and many other details of life choices. The result I got was that if everyone lived my lifestyle, 3.26 earths would be need. The result is quite shocking and I realize that a little difference in lifestyle of each individual can make a significant change in the environment.
kimzzzy 9:23 am on January 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
My ecological foot print is 3.5 which tells me how much land and resources (in hectares) is needed to support my current life style. My ecological foot print is much greater than the world average and this worries me to know that I others that score less have to take on the damages that I have caused from my current consumption patterns. I have to take action in changing my lifestyle since there are people who are able to live life in a more sustainable way and taking on the responsibility of controlling climate change.
brenden 3:59 pm on January 31, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I was shocked by the results. I understood before the exercise that the results would likely surprise me but I never expected that my roomate and I have consumption habits that would require 3.6 planets to support us if the world population shared our habits. Our consumption habits utilize 15.3 global hectares of productive land. Food (27%) was our largest footprint followed closely by services. I find this data to be rather alarming and I plan on following some of the suggested steps to reduce our footprint. I’m going to show this calculator to others because I think many people take for granted the significance of their actions impact on the environment.