When thinking about the human footprint, there are a couple of terms that need to be defined - sustainability, human footprint, and ecological footprint. "Sustainability" is being able to endure, to keep on going. I think that trees could be an example of a sustainable resource, because we can keep planting them whenever we cut them down and they will go on. "Human footprint" is the mark that Homo sapiens, as a species, create on planet Earth. We leave a trail of pollution, trash, and death behind us - our human footprint. An ecological footprint is what we use to measure the quantity of nature that is allotted to us, and how much we actually consume. Earth has absolutely EVERYTHING to do with our ecological footprint. If we use up too many natural resources, global warming will take over, the polar ice caps will melt, many different species of animals will go extinct, islands will be flooded over, hundreds of thousands of things that COULD go wrong WILL go wrong. Some things that could make a deeper water ecological footprint would be to take too many showers, fill our baths up to their full extent, and use the dishwasher every day. When we deepen our transportation footprint, we actually are accessing things that we WANT, but don't necessarily NEED. Some ways that could make our energy footprint bigger would be to leave our phones plugged in all night when they're already full of juice and leaving the lights on when you really don't need to. We help make our garbage footprint larger by wasting food by throwing it out and not recycling items that can be recycled. The last category of the ecological footprint, food, can be deepened by always buying packaged foods from distant countries. When we consume too much, we throw out too much, which means we fill up the land mines and areas of the ocean with trash. Animals on land and in sea attempt to eat some of that garbage, and either choke or die of poisoning. That then wrecks the food chain, and a whole lot more animals die because of that.
I have used both websites to calculate my human footprint, and I got pretty similar answers. One site told me that if everyone in the world lived like me, we would have to use up 2.3 planet Earths, and the other told me we would have to have 2.4 planet Earths. I think that my family and I really use up a lot of water by each taking 1 shower a day, running the dishwasher almost every day, and traveling to different continents over the the seasonal breaks. What we could do to try to lessen our footprint would be to unplug appliances that do not need to be charged. Sometimes, my mom leaves her laptop charged in for days at a time, and our family ipod is almost always plugged in, even when it's full of juice already. We could also stop eating meat as much as we do now, and try to eat more locally grown fruits and vegetables. I thought that my family was pretty eco-friendly, but after I did the surveys, I feel much more humbled about it.
Reading about global and personal earthly impacts really surprised me. I never expected that only 1/3200 of the the Photic Zone where there is enough sunlight that breaks through the ocean water to enable photosynthesis to take place. I thought that most of the ocean was sunny and fertile. I also feel bad that we humans use about 1/2 of the land on the Earth. We are only one out of millions and billions of species on the planet. We use and trash one half of the planet, and leave only half of it for all the rest of the animals that need to survive. I was also really surprised about the fact that the wealthiest 5% of the world's population eat about 45% of all the meat and fish consumed by humans, use 58% of energy, and own 87% vehicles of the world, while only 5% of fish and meat is eaten, 4% of energy is consumed, and 1% of the world's vehicles are owned, by 20% of the world's least wealthy population. I never realized that there was so much difference between the wealthy and the poor.
Watching the video, "Human Footprint," in class was also a very impacting experience. I never thought that just one person could consume SO MUCH in their entire life. Watching all those eggs falling down from that bucket was, I think, the thing that I remember best. I feel so bad for killing all those chick-to-be's already, and I've only lived 12 years of my life! :(
I have used both websites to calculate my human footprint, and I got pretty similar answers. One site told me that if everyone in the world lived like me, we would have to use up 2.3 planet Earths, and the other told me we would have to have 2.4 planet Earths. I think that my family and I really use up a lot of water by each taking 1 shower a day, running the dishwasher almost every day, and traveling to different continents over the the seasonal breaks. What we could do to try to lessen our footprint would be to unplug appliances that do not need to be charged. Sometimes, my mom leaves her laptop charged in for days at a time, and our family ipod is almost always plugged in, even when it's full of juice already. We could also stop eating meat as much as we do now, and try to eat more locally grown fruits and vegetables. I thought that my family was pretty eco-friendly, but after I did the surveys, I feel much more humbled about it.
Reading about global and personal earthly impacts really surprised me. I never expected that only 1/3200 of the the Photic Zone where there is enough sunlight that breaks through the ocean water to enable photosynthesis to take place. I thought that most of the ocean was sunny and fertile. I also feel bad that we humans use about 1/2 of the land on the Earth. We are only one out of millions and billions of species on the planet. We use and trash one half of the planet, and leave only half of it for all the rest of the animals that need to survive. I was also really surprised about the fact that the wealthiest 5% of the world's population eat about 45% of all the meat and fish consumed by humans, use 58% of energy, and own 87% vehicles of the world, while only 5% of fish and meat is eaten, 4% of energy is consumed, and 1% of the world's vehicles are owned, by 20% of the world's least wealthy population. I never realized that there was so much difference between the wealthy and the poor.
Watching the video, "Human Footprint," in class was also a very impacting experience. I never thought that just one person could consume SO MUCH in their entire life. Watching all those eggs falling down from that bucket was, I think, the thing that I remember best. I feel so bad for killing all those chick-to-be's already, and I've only lived 12 years of my life! :(
No comments:
Post a Comment