So, according to myfootprint.org, if everyone lived my lifestyle, we would need 4.28 earths. Wow. Honestly, at first I felt extremely bad that my family had such a lifestyle because comparing mine to other people, mine seemed a lot bigger than others. After thinking it through, I realized that one of the reasons my footprint was so high was because I lived with many people in my house. I was honest in all my answers and as precise as I could be. However, this is still not an excuse for my family and I to not do anything about this situation. I feel that this footprint has made me realize how much of a difference my family makes to the Earth's future. I feel now that I should pay more attention to how much my family throws away, how many km we travel each year, and take more responsibility in educating the rest of my family about our large ecological footprint.
As a member of my family, if I could change anything about our lifestyle so that it wouldn't have such a large footprint, I would ask my parents to buy more eco-friendly and energy saving appliances, especially now that we can afford them. I would ask my mom to buy from more local grocery stores and start using her garden a bit more. As an individual, things I could do could be to walk to school more often since I live only a few km away, or when doing the laundry I could hang my clothes. However, the most energy draining appliance I believe my family uses, is the air conditioning system. During most summers, my family uses up to THREE a/c'z, something I am not particularly proud of. :S So this summer, I think I will ask my family to use less air conditioners and think of other ways to keep cool and spend less energy.
I believe that this interactive website will definitely bring about response to global because it is involves people putting a little effort in finding out what their footprint is. People are curious about their effect on the world. But what I think will get the most response out of people is the fact that their footprint isn't the size they expected it to be and often feel guilty about their footprint. In my case, I definitely felt that way.
3 comments:
Alyssa,
wow 4.28?! I think that we as people living on earth should do some drastic measures on making our world stay longer. If we don't do anything to save the animals up north and the environment we can go bye-bye. But doing the little things and changing your lifestyle at home can make a difference. :)
wow that is a pretty big footprint but i suppose it is understandable seeing the circumstances. The site for it does not assume that you might do less than the rest of the family so I would be able to understand if that was way off that is still a big number walk to school sometime. but that would be a journey too.
Hey Alyssa! I think people in our society need to stop using so much ecological footprint and actually care about our environment. If we continue to live our normal lifestyles, our Earth will be destroyed in no time. That's why we need to help prevent that from happening by reducing, recycling, and reusing. Also, we can take a walk sometimes instead of driving all the time. All of these things can help our world last much longer!
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