Ecological Footprint Results

For this exercise, we were asked to take surveys to see our ecological footprint. These surveys were broken down into 4 categories which are, Ecological footprint, carbon footprint, water footprint, and slavery footprint. The surveys actually gave good insights into how much I contribute to the world's degradation. My results are as followed.

Ecological Footprint

The ecological footprint is the impact someone has on the community or environment. In this case, we are expressing our ecological footprint as the amount of land required for me to sustain my lifestyle based on my use of the earths natural resources. This survey concluded that if everyone lived like me it would take 4.5 earths to sustain my current lifestyle. 

These results kind of surprised me because I feel that my current daily routine allows me to live a simple lifestyle where I minimize the things I buy and the resources that I use. One thing that I think inflates this number is the amount of driving I do and the car that I drive. My car isn't very eco-friendly and I tend to drive quite a bit for work and school. Overall there is always room for improvement.

Carbon Footprint

The second calculator that I used was my carbon footprint. I thought this was going to be the calculator that yielded the highest results because of what I drive and how much I drive daily. This test was interesting because it included carbon footprint in all aspects of my life from driving to the food that I eat. some of the things that contributed to my carbon footprint didn't register with me until now. 

The results showed that, as predicted, travel is my highest carbon footprint category, with home at a close second. This doesn't surprise me because the house I live in how is pre-1950, and the insulation is actually terrible and doesn't hold in the heat in the winter months, which causes my electricity to go up. But with 90% of our power in the pacific northwest coming from hydro dams. By using electricity, I am minimizing my carbon footprint as much as possible. As for transportation, this can be better.

Water Footprint

The water footprint calculator measures all the water needed to maintain my lifestyle based on what I buy, how much water I use at my home and how much water is required to grow the food I eat every day. This one was interesting because, again, it calculated different things that I didn't know utilized so much water. The survey concluded that I use about 1,431 gallons of water every day. That might seem like a lot, and well, because it is. I attached a 45,000-gallon water tank which is approx how much water I use each month.

To my supprise, my footprint was below the national average by about 400 gallons. I was also surprised that most of my footprint came from the foot I eat. Turns out growing grains and livestock take lots of water.

Slavery Footprint

This calculator is different from the rest and instead of calculating carbon, water, or ecological footprint, it calculates how many humans were 'enslaved' to create the things I use on a daily basis.  

The results kind of surprised me because I live a relatively simple life. But I also realize that my heavy reliance on technology probably plays a large role in my calculation. I assume that the amount of labor that it takes to harvest the materials, assemble them and produce a working product for me to use is great. I think this number would decrease if I dialed back my use of technology each day. I am also surprised that I am over the average in my area. I tend to repair and recycle broken electronics which I feel would reduce this number.

I do feel that it would be better if the website gave direct insights on what I am directly doing to raise or decrease this number.

What should I change?

There are many different things that I can change in my day-to-day life to lower all levels of ecological, carbon, and water footprints as well as the 'slaves' working for me. So I am going to break it down into my top 3 actions that I think will have the largest impact while minimizing the change in my lifestyle.

1) I feel driving is one of the largest contributors to my ecological and carbon footprint. I already know that I can reduce this a significant amount. I just enjoy driving, it's almost one of my hobbies. It's relaxing for me and lets me think clearly for a short period of time, so I tend to drive anywhere I can. My goal is to reduce driving outside of driving to work and school each day, those are pretty mandatory and I don't see that changing but pleasure driving can defiantly be reduced.

2) The second biggest factor is that my diet directly relates to increases in both carbon and water consumption categories. I tend to eat more meat and seafood and processed grains that can be cut out of my diet. My goal is to reduce the amount of meat I eat during the week and focus on eating produce and whole-grain foods.

3) The third goal is to be more conscious about companies and where they source their products from. I understand a lot of companies source their product from foreign companies with bad labor laws to maximize profits. I would like to refrain from buying from companies like that to not only limit my carbon footprint overall but limit the human labor that my lifestyle requires daily.

After writing out my goals, I feel that these are definatly achievable. I know that these goals might not happen over night but over the course of the next quarter I would be supprised if I didn't reach my goals.