Geography 2412

                                                                                                                                           Fall 2004

Name:_______________________________________

Date:________________________________________

TA:_________________________________________

Exercise 2: Your Ecological Footprint

Before doing this assignment, review the box at the top of page 16 in Cunningham: “Measuring sustainability and ecological footprints”

No matter how you feel about environmental issues and threats, the simple fact is that each of our lifestyles and consumption patterns does rely on natural resources and production systems that transform nature into consumer products, as well as create waste and pollution. One concept that has evolved to assess this impact is called the "ecological footprint": the volume of land and resources appropriated to support a person, a population, a city, country, etc.  

To get a feel for the way that individual and collective consumption affects land and resources, calculate your ecological footprint. Go to:
http://www.myfootprint.org/  and answer the questions below.   If you prefer another footprint calculator, you can use it. However, give us its web address,
 and be sure to specify the units it uses to express your footprint.

(1) If everyone on earth used the same amount of resources as you, how many earths would we need (given our current world population and level of technology)? (5%)

 

(2)  What is your ecological footprint: ________ (what units?) (5%)

 

(3) For the next part, you’ll have to play around with different answers to see how changes in certain categories affect the final footprint.  Recalculate your footprint with changes in lifestyle and consumption to determine which three changes would bring about the largest reduction in footprint (e.g., fly less than 10 hours a year). You can see http://www.redefiningprogress.org/footprint/reducing.html for ideas  (20%)

Describe each of the three changes and how much each changes the final footprint.

A.

 

B.

 

 

C.

 

(4) Reflect on these changes. Which ones are easier and which ones are harder to make?  Do you have control over them as an individual? Why or why not? Which require collective change and how might these be achieved? Write 1-2 well formed paragraphs answering these questions.  (35%)

 

 

 

 

 

 

(5) Read through the FAQ (frequently asked questions) about the ecological footprint:

http://redefiningprogress.org/programs/sustainabilityindicators/ef/faq/

            as well as the page about methodology

http://redefiningprogress.org/programs/sustainabilityindicators/ef/methods/calculating.html

to answer the following questions in 1-2 sentences each. (35%)

(a) Why does the footprint calculator ask which country you live in?

 

(b) Why does it ask about climate, and how does that affect the calculation of footprint?

 

(c) Why does the calculated footprint decrease with additional number of people in the household?

 

(d) What five assumptions does the footprint calculator make? How reasonable do you think these assumptions are?