Calculate Your Ecological Footprint
 

Calculate Your Ecological Footprint

Wanna know how much your life style impacts on the ecology of the planet?

Try this test.

http://www.lead.org/leadnet/footprint/intro.htm

According to my results, it would take 3 earths to support everyone living a similar lifestyle.

And there was me thinking i was being green. :)

Re: Calculate Your Ecological Footprint
 

5 Earths - but then I went thru again and totally lied & still needed 4.4 hectares - i.e. 2 Earths.

But more importantly, the oil will run out in less then 100 years. I expect to see the beginning of the huge changes that will bring in my lifetime ... and I'm about halfway through that already!

Re: Calculate Your Ecological Footprint
 

There's only one thing for it, ditch fossile fuel powerstations and have loads of nuclear ones :)

Re: Calculate Your Ecological Footprint
 

4.6 Earths.

Re: Calculate Your Ecological Footprint
 

:tu: We should be more brave

edit- YOUR RESULTS:
Food Footprint 1.3 hectares or 3.3 acres
Transportation Footprint 0.1 hectares or 0.3 acres
Housing Footprint 0.6 hectares or 1.6 acres
Other Footprints 0.8 hectares or 1.9 acres

Total Footprint per person 2.9 hectares or 7.1 acres

1.5 earths

One benefit of being poor :D

Re: Calculate Your Ecological Footprint
 

3.7 earths. :erm:

Re: Calculate Your Ecological Footprint
 

Its not as polluting as fossil fuels.
The spent fuel can be recycled, and any remaining waste can be launched into the sun, or to the moon.

It will seriously reduce the greenhouse affect.
Of course as soon as we can we should move to fusion reactors and shut down the fission reactors.

Re: Calculate Your Ecological Footprint
 

Oh looks like im not doing too bad then.
Alan needs over 5 earths :)
You'd have to live like a hermit in order to only need one
earth according to that test.
Population control is the key to set the earth free.

Re: Calculate Your Ecological Footprint
 

How much space did you give to other species??

Re: Calculate Your Ecological Footprint
 

The recommended 12%, was that wrong? :erm:

Re: Calculate Your Ecological Footprint
 

No I was just wondering how the percentage affects the results .

Re: Calculate Your Ecological Footprint
 

I used 20% - it made a difference of about 0.5 earths from the 12% figure.

I've done it again, this time with 12%, only a
slight improvement tho.

2.6 earths.

:(

Re: Calculate Your Ecological Footprint
 

I can't quite see how it affects the calculation. (in mathematical terms)
An 8% increase in space (given??) to other species means, based on your
results, means another half an earth?

So I assume for every 16% you give to other species, we would need a whole extra earth?? Am I reading it right?

Re: Calculate Your Ecological Footprint
 

Well my "footprint" is 57.4% of the Average American.

It's obviously American because it does *not* have anywhere to say "I don't own a car" or "I have double glazing and don't use air conditioning" etc etc!!

The "how much space should be set aside for other species" is pretty meaningless IMO because most human habitation is clumped together in cities or other "centralised" areas, yet using the 12% "recommended" figure it would require 3.1 Earths to support everyone at my standard of living.

Also, of course, there are huge swathes of the world who do *not* have that standard of living (or the opportunity to have it) eg Africa, China, India, Bangladesh etc, so it's pretty pointless to calculate how 6 billion people would live the way I (or anyone else) does.

Re: Calculate Your Ecological Footprint
 

How much energy does it take to launch a pound of payload out of the Earth's gravitational well? (And, more to the point, it also currently costs around $10,000 for each pound.)

How much pollution will that rocket cause?

And what happens if the lauch goes wrong? Bang! Oops, a nice radioactive shower for someone's country...!

Do you have any idea how difficult it is to decommission a fission reactor? And are you going to lauch all that material into space too?

Re: Calculate Your Ecological Footprint
 

YOUR RESULTS:
Food Footprint 0.6 hectares or 1.5 acres
Transportation Footprint 5.4 hectares or 13.4 acres
Housing Footprint 1.3 hectares or 3.2 acres
Other Footprints 2.7 hectares or 6.7 acres

Total Footprint per person 10 hectares or 24.8 acres

IN COMPARISON:

Your Eco-Footprint measures 98.5 % of an average American Footprint.



5% set aside

That comes to 5 earths.


Hmm. Before everyone jumps up and down over my transportation thingy, I fly on average 100 to 150 hours a year because I find it relaxing and it is my hobby. Now I put down 100 hours a year in a commercial jetliner, but there is a difference between a jetliner and my single engine Cessna that I fly.

Second, I used the housing footprint of my family. I don't expect to have a 4,000 sq. ft. house for a few years.

I do want a 4,000 or 5,000 sq. feet house though. Anything smaller is stupid. And yes, we have the space to spare. :)

Lastly, it seems my food "print" is much smaller than most of you folks... Probably because 60% of my diet is raw green leafy vegetables (romaine lettuce, kale, swiss chard, etc.) and the remaining part is mostly other vegetables and fruits and nuts.

Re: Calculate Your Ecological Footprint
 

Don't use SRB's like the shuttle, just use hydrogen/oxygen rockets.
And you're thinking of using today's technology, when it will be tomorrow's that will be around when the time comes.
As for the cost, what price are you willing to pay to make a drastic change to the green house emissions?
Isn't reducing carbon dioxide and sulphur dioxide pollution worth it? Not to mention all the other nasty carconogenic chemicals which are spewed out from fossil fuel power stations.
Renewable resouces like solar or wind cannot make enough of an impact into our energy and pollution reduction needs, partly through NIMBYs and partly because things like wind turbines produce more pollution in their production than they can save during their lifetime.

Re: Calculate Your Ecological Footprint
 

And you spend 150hrs a year in a sealed vehicle with recycled air?
Your other passengers must love you :D

(darn we need a "passing wind smilie")

Re: Calculate Your Ecological Footprint
 

And where does the hydrogen and oxygen come from? Water, sure, but it needs to be purified and electrolysis-ised (or whatever!) and that needs energy and generating energy generates heat as does burning hydrogen and oxygen.

You hope... (So do I, but nobody can say when a breakthrough will come)

Like shooting Dubya and his pals, you mean?! (Into space, before anyone gets upset about me proposing assassination attempts!! :D )

I agree we need to stop messing up the planet, but such changes *HAVE* to come from the top down. There's no point in you or I saving a little here or there if other governments and industries are doing their damndest to ignore the problem entirely.

Re: Calculate Your Ecological Footprint
 

OFF TOPIC

Improper combination of foods cause excessive gas that your body cannot deal with. I don't eat food that will rot inside my body and cause obnoxious fumes. (put an egg, or a steak, or some cheese in an enclosed box in the sun when it is 37 degrees outside, and open it after 8 hours. not pleasant, eh?) I don't smell.

Re: Calculate Your Ecological Footprint
 

Plant trees. Don't worry about emissions. Plant lots and lots of trees. Line every street with trees. Every highway and freeway. Every neighborhood. Plant trees on top of buildings. Trees are wonderful things.

Re: Calculate Your Ecological Footprint
 

You can even talk to them...!!

<Sings> I talk to the trees, but they don't talk to me...!
:spin:

Re: Calculate Your Ecological Footprint
 

I talk to my plants when I water and clean them. :)

Re: Calculate Your Ecological Footprint
 

Use the energy from the nuclear power stations :D
That's the nice thing about using H2/O2 as a fuel, you start with water, reduce (I'm using the chemical term reduce here) the hydrogen using electrolysis storing the oxygen too, then you oxidise the hydrogen out of the bottom of the rocket and get loads of water again.

Well if we don't go for space, we can always send it to the sea bed, it's not like it's going to float to the surface!
The cost of decomissioning is apparently less than 5% of the total electricity generation costs according to the Wold Nuclear Association.

Definitely agree.
The politicians can't spend anymore time faffing about undecided.
They need to actually do something.
Show people how safe the new nuclear power stations are.
The problem is, nuclear scares people, they don't understand that waste from a nuclear powerstation can be dealt with more safely than a fossil burning powerstation, where the waste flows out into the atmosphere and causes global warming along with acid rain.
Both produce nasty pollution, but at least with nuclear we can keep it contained and if some does leak the global environmental impact is much smaller than CO2 etc.
If possible convert any oil or coal burning power stations to gas (don't know if it can be done), it will help a little until they're no longer needed.
Encourage people to use low energy light bulbs. Did you know that a 2p increase in fuel does less for the environment than making everyone use at least one low energy light bulb, but costs the public so much more?

Re: Calculate Your Ecological Footprint
 

"I talk to the trees...that's why they put me away..."

- Eccles - The Goon Show

:D

Re: Calculate Your Ecological Footprint
 

Another really good idea.
Trees soak up carbon dioxide while they're growning.
But you have to chop them down once they've grown and store them somewhere where the CO2 which is releaced when they decompose isn't released back into the atmosphere.
For instance, the rain forrest, so called lungs of the world, actually has a net CO2 absorbsion of about 0. That is, it produces through decomposition about as much as it absorbs. Now if we could prevent the re-release of the CO2 we'd have a fantastic CO2 sink.

Build roads. May sound daft, but they absorbe CO2 for a considerable amount of time.
Remember the biosphere 2 experiment? They abandoned it because they couldn't figure out where the oxygen was going?
It was going into the concrete of the structure.
They'd messed up their soil cultures a bit, having too much bacteria, producing too much CO2 and taking in loads of oxygen in the process. Some of this CO2 was absorbed by the concrete, so the net oxygen levels dropped.
Course you should cycle on the road once you've built it :)

Re: Calculate Your Ecological Footprint
 

YOUR RESULTS:
Food Footprint 2.2 hectares or 5.4 acres
Transportation Footprint 4.1 hectares or 10 acres
Housing Footprint 2.3 hectares or 5.6 acres
Other Footprints 3.1 hectares or 7.8 acres

Total Footprint per person 11.7 hectares or 28.8 acres

Hence, it requires 6.1 Earths to support each member of the present human population at your standard of living.

My transport footprint is huge having an American wife and the twice yearly+ trips to see family in the US.

Re: Calculate Your Ecological Footprint
 

119.8% of an average american - And it's supposed to be the Yanks who are the planet's evil dooers :shocked:

There was me thinking I was quite green, doing the recycling bits, switching off unwanted lights and all that.

Apparently it needs 6.4 earths to support my standard of living. But I'm still here so thats either gotta be a load of tosh, or perhaps that's why Africa is starving ?