My ecological footprint

My ecological footprint percentage is 70.82%. We would need 4.51 earths if everyone had the lifestyle that I lead. The results made me feel concerned because my footprint is below average by almost 20 percent, which seems like a lot to me. I was surprised that my results were so poor because I think of myself as someone who is environmentally conscious. I do not litter by throwing garbage on the street. If a garbage can is not conveniently located by me, I carry the garbage with me until I can find a garbage can. Because of little things like this, I was surprised that my ecological footprint is so low. That is why I think this was a worthwhile assignment because it educated me about how environmentally friendly I am. I would realistically reduce my footprint by about 25% by using cleaner transport. Usually I drive whenever I need to go somewhere, but I think from now on whenever possible, I will take the Metro Transit bus instead.

I think that resource depletion is likely to increase as Developing Countries attempt to increase their standard of living. The country where I am from, a developing country, Yemen, does not have as large an ecological footprint as Canada does. In our cities, cars are used a lot but in the countryside, people uses horses and camels as their main way of transporting themselves. Yemen is trying to become more developed like the West, but so far it has not worked out that well. Originally, because Yemen started out as a kingdom, only the King had a car but over time, as it became a republic, cars became more common as everyday people began driving them in the cities. I think that as Yemen seeks to become more like the Western world, especially the United States, resource depletion will become more pronounced. Developing Nations should not have the right to deplete resources just to become more like the West, because that will make just the situation with the environment worse as time goes on. If every country has a large ecological footprint, then we will increasingly need more earths to satisfy everyone’s energy consumption.

The article, found on http://www.edie.net/news/news_story.asp?id=16168. says that people in Europe are relying too much on groundwater. If this continues, then the water supply could become a problem. If that happens, the price of water will go up, and this will be bad for the world economy because everyone needs water. If people who need it cannot afford to pay for it, then that could be an economic, as well as environmental, disaster. The root cause of this problem is that people are relying too much on groundwater. We can reduce our footprint as countries by making sure that some people do not get extra water, while others go without.

References

• Retrieved online on May 18, 2009 at http://www.edie.net/news/news_story.asp?id=16168