I hope there are another few habitable planets out there

Today I went to my internship, as I do every Thursday.  I really didn’t want to go to work today.  I felt like sleeping in and informing my supervisor that my car battery had died, but I’m a poor liar – the guilt eats away at me.  So I dragged my body out of bed, threw on the clothing I had worn the day before (it was business casual), brushed my teeth and drove to work only to discover that my supervisor wasn’t coming in today.  The other employees did not know what busy work to give me, so I sat in front of my computer and calculated my ecological and carbon footprint multiple times. 

Averaging the results from the many different sites I used to calculate my footprints, we would need 4 worlds to support the human population if everyone on Earth lived as I do (my ecological footprint) and I emitted around 7 tons of CO2 into the atmosphere this past year.  These results are quite horrible and so I decided to see what would happen if I changed certain aspects of my life.  My eating habits are the worst (I don’t eat fresh or locally grown produce – I don’t really it produce at all.  So I entered the data pretending that I did it locally and organically.  My ecological footprint shrunk but not by much.  I then decided to try lowering the impact of my other activities.  Soon enough I had made myself a vegan that grows her own produce or buys it at the farmer’s market.  All the waste I create was composted in my hypothetical bin and I recycled the few goods I bought.  I no longer owned a car, took any form of public transportation, or traveled further than I could bike.  My footprint was still too large for 6 billion people to live as I do.  So then I decided to change my living situation.  Instead of living in a duplex with 4 people, I upped the residents to 7 (the maximum choice).  I pretended that 100% of the energy was renewable and that my electricity and gas bills were only $5 a month (the lowest option).  I pressed calculate once again.  My ecological footprint was still over 2 worlds.  I was shocked.  I had chosen the most ecologically friendly option for every question.  Yet, there are too many people for everyone to live as I “would” (without transportation, meat, and fossil fuels).  All I have left to do is hope the calculator was broken and attempt to live as sustainably as possible. 

(On a positive note, through a different site I was actually able to lower my footprint to only 1.7 worlds by living a life I felt is attainable and fulfilling.)

Big Impact Man

This past we watched the movie No Impact Man.  The documentary got me thinking about all the ways the “Man’s” family impacted the environment and society.  The “Man” actively avoided wasteful modes of living and replaced them with more sustainable options when necessary.  But even more than the small and major changes that he made to his lifestyle were the changes he made to his perception of “really want” and the message he relayed to other people.  One man can have an immense impact on our world because the actions of one man affect his family and his community and onward.  Realize that whether or not you change, you still have an impact.  People notice what others do/don’t do. 

Besides, there really is no such thing as a no impact man.  Human beings are a part of their ecosystems.  We interact with our environment and other organisms.  When it comes to our ecological impact though, we have a choice.  We can make a positive impact or a negative one.  We can keep our resources and waste products at a local, small, manageable level or we can lose ourselves in the unnecessary (yet very shiny) resources so easily accessible (yet untraceable) and disregard our waste that disappears at a global, large, and unmanageable level.  The choice is ours. 

If each of us was to choose one aspect of our lives and make it more sustainable, perhaps our peers would pick up the good habit as well.  Every person’s individual miniscule action may have no impact when viewed alone, but if all these actions are combined the positive impact can be immense. 

What will you change?