Ecological footprint quiz. How many Earths?
Global Images of Earth taken by the Galileo spacecraft courtesy NASA-JPL.
How many Earths would it take if everyone lived like you?
The Global Footprint Network offers an online quiz to help you find out. It’s called the Ecological Footprint Quiz. Here’s executive director Mathis Wackernagel:
Mathis Wackernagel: So, similar to financial accounting tools – how much money do I earn, how much money do I spend – the Ecologocal Footprint is a resource accounting tool: how many resources do we use as humanity or as individuals? And then we can compare it to the regenerative capacity of the biosphere, and so, we can compare how much nature we use to how much nature we have.
Wackernagel said a million people take the quiz each year. It’s 15 questions ranging from what you eat, to the size of your living space, to how you dispose of your garbage. Wackernagel said the data used in this work comes from the statistical offices in 150 countries.
He said if everyone lived like Americans, we’d need about 5 Earths to sustain us. But he said, this work isn’t primarily about reducing your footprint. It’s about finding a better way to live.
Mathis Wackernagel: An interesting comparison: in Italy they use 2.5 times less footprint per person than we in the U.S. and they’re not suffering. There are many ways that we can organize our lives that may be a very high quality of life with significantly reduced resource consumption. That’s really the challenge of the 21st century.
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Wackernagel says there’s only so much you can do to reduce your footprint on your own. He said the system in which we live locks us into certain patterns of consumption.
“Urban design influences 70 to 80 percent of our overall footprint. For instance, in Italy, if you live in a dense city, you can walk to work, and you don’t need to have a car to get around. There are markets where you can buy food from neighboring farms. All these aspects are far less resource-intensive,” he said.
“If you live in a very low density situation, let’s say, a suburb of Houston, you have to drive anywhere you want to go. You have to drive your kids to school. You have to drive to get a little bit of milk, etc.”
“So even though that’s not necessarily the highest quality of life at that moment, there’s no other choice. It forces you to have a relatively high footprint.”
The Global Footprint Network is helping governments around the world work towards ecological balance and sustainable development. So far, the list includes Switzerland, Mozambique, Japan, Belgium, and the United Arab Emirates.
Take the Ecological Footprint Quiz
Our Ecological Footprint: Reducing Human Impact on the Earth, by Mathis Wackernagel and William Rees
Watch a video of Mathis Wackernagel explaining the Ecological Footprint
Our thanks to:
Mathis Wackernagel
Executive Director
Global Footprint Network
I took the quiz. It is not exactly scientific nor does it ask enough or proper questions to find out anything about one’s lifestyle. Also, we here in the civilized, industrialized world take much less land per acre to exist than does a nomadic, hunter/ gatherer human. It sounds nice, it just ain’t real.
An example are the questions about travel. I scored real well because I don’t drive my pickup much. However, my wife and I own an eighteen wheeler and burn, on average about 130 gallons of diesel every twenty four hours. That is figuring about 1200 miles on a good 24 hour day. What does that mean? I am not personally riding around wasting fuel. I burn a pile but it is to support other’s lifestyles. How do you score that?
If you wish to conserve, please do so. Realize, though, that by giving up your modern lifestyle, you will not stop China from burning everything it can get its hands on with absolutely no regard for human, animal or environment.
A thinking person could use an economic way of looking at things and use what he wishes to afford. Things like hybrid cars are not only false economy, from an environmental standpoint, they are disasters taking more resources to build, operate and dispose of than does a full scale Hummer. Be careful what you are led to believe.
i have to agree, people trash the environment because we are by nature selfish. as i have stated before everyone seems to want an suv to protect their children. the irony is that they could protect their great great grandchildren by using an economy car and less gas. but everyone will have an excuse why they need an suv. if you live in an urban area you have no excuse. the real problem society should work on is hate and anger. everyone gets mad and angry too easily. its vogue to pick apart each other and our govt, its simple to second guess its hard to lead. anger and disregaurd for each other leads to indifference about our personal effect on the environment. dont get me wrong though, i believe this global terror scare is just reactionary. but i do believe we can all begin to lead by example rather than give ourselves ulcers worrying about what evryone else is up to.
I’m sorry, I’ve been looking all over and cannot find where the article on UFO’s might be, or where I can ask…so…I heard you say there was an area to check if we’d like to have UFO info released by governments- and I say, YES please. All collected info should be publically released. We are ruining this planet. The Space Brothers can help us if we invite them to. Now “we”- our neo-con friends- want to ruin space as well, with weapons stations, etc. Walter Croncite saw amazing evidence of Space Brothers at a US missile test site in the ’50s- ask him to finally talk about it publically, not just off the record to friends only. We need serious help, we have indeed nearly done enough destruction to the Earth that soon we will not be able to stop the collapse of our life support systems. We need help from our far more spiritually (not in a religious sense, but in a compassionate and wise sense) and technologically advanced brothers. (yeah, yeah, and sisters. I mean “brothers” generically)Until we are willing to share our resources equitably, and take care of each other as the one family that we are, we will continue to have a very difficult time here. Sharing and justice are the only things that will bring true peace and freedom to us.