Eye Opener : Ecological Footprints in the Sand

Photo by Robyn Granholm

For our first Eye Opener assignment, we were asked to check out multiple sites that contained quizzes that calculated our ecological footprint. I opted to take the quiz offered on the IUHPE website. My results showed that if everyone was to live like I do, we would need 6.6 Planet Earths to provide enough resources. My lifestyle takes 29.2 global acres of the Earth's productive area. Overwhelmingly, land for my energy usage took up much of my productive area.

My personal ecological footprint was broken down into:

• 30% Services
• 28% Mobility
• 20% Food
• 13% Shelter
• 9% Goods

I am not overly surprised about my mobility number. I spend many hours in my Suburban, driving to and from UMD/Duluth area and driving my daughter around for swimming things and school events. I do ride-share with three other families for swimming practice. We have a schedule of who is picking the girls up from school and taking them to the pool and who is picking them up after practice. I have my reasons for having a large vehicle (and actually wanting a bigger one). These have to do with having the ability to haul multiple children/adults in a safe manner, ability to get to point A to point B in large amounts of snow, and being able to haul my boat.

While it is not the most economical vehicle around, I do my best to make sure my miles per gallon are as high as possible. Cruise control is my friend. If I'm going for long trips, I normally set the cruise control to keep my speed consistent (and to not speed). =) This helps in keeping my gas mileage fairly consistent. Mind you....driving back and forth to UMD sometimes twice a day does not help the pocketbook or my ecological footprint. The twice a day comes into play when I need to attend classes in the morning and then bring my daughter in the evening to swim for the North Shore Swim Club.

The quiz suggested that one way I could decrease my ecological footprint would be to use public transportation one or more days each week instead of driving my truck. While I think this is a great idea, it is not possible given where I live. Public transportation, such as the bus, does not come out as far as Esko, nor do we have any buses to go between the little towns in the surrounding area.

Suggestions from the quiz that I think are possible to implement into my daily life include reducing the amount of animal-products that are currently consumed in my household and purchasing products that use less packaging.  I'm not sure Aly and I could cut our animal-product consumption in half, but it is worth a try. We would certainly benefit from eating less processed foods and eating more organic foods. If every American did that, we would use 645 MILLION fewer global acres or the equivalent of 484 million football field. That's a TON of football fields. Seems like something we should ALL work toward.