Earth & Sky

A tool for understanding human consumption

Photo by Esther17

We have only one planet. We want to live the best lives we can. Mathis Wackernagel believes we’re already overspending our resources.

But, according to Wackernagel, there are solutions. While still in graduate school, he created a first step: a tool for understanding how our consumption is linked to the ecosystems that support us. You can participate in this understanding, by taking the Ecological Footprint Quiz. It’ll help you understand how many Earths would be required if everyone lived like you.

Wackernagel – who is now Executive Director of the Global Footprint Network – had a lot of interesting things to say, when he spoke with Earth & Sky’s Lindsay Patterson. Hear the full–length 11–minute podcast by pressing the “listen” button above.

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3 Comments for A tool for understanding human consumption

1. 1

   May 9, 02:04 AM #

   percey says:

   I think that this website was good.

2. May 9, 08:52 AM #

   Deborah Byrd says:

   Thank you Percey! We hope you’ll visit often.

   Deborah

3. 2

   May 12, 12:03 PM #

   stevenearlsalmony says:

   Words on the impossibility of endless economic expansion in a finite world from the eminent scientist, Professor Albert A. Bartlett………….......

   THOUGHTS ON GROWTH

   Every increment of added population and every added increment of affluence invariably destroy an increment of the remaining environment. Population growth and increases in affluence make it impossible for reasonable increments of improved efficiency in the use of resources to enhance or to preserve the environment.
   You cannot preserve the environment by accepting the population growth and the increased affluence that are now destroying the environment.

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   SMART GROWTH – DUMB GROWTH

   Smart Growth is better than Dumb Growth. Smart Growth destroys the environment. Dumb Growth destroys the environment. The difference is that Smart Growth destroys the environment with good taste.

   So it’s like buying a ticket on the TITANIC; if you’re smart you go First Class, if you’re dumb you go Steerage. Either way the result’s the same.

   Similarly, the Environment is like a beef animal You can throw it into a grinder and get hamburger. Or, you can give it to a chef and get a wonderful dinner. But either way, you have destroyed the animal.

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   A CHALLENGE

   Can you think of any problem, on any scale, from microscopic to global, whose LONG-TERM solution is in any DEMONSTRABLE way aided, assisted or advanced by having larger populations at the local level, the state level, nationally, or globally?