Giant Footprint, Little Pawprint
I’m little by little working on making my ecological footprint smaller. The average American has a 24-acre footprint, and currently the planet has only 4.5 acres per person. So we’re pretty lousy about taking care of our planet.
Right now, my footprint is about 14 acres. Compared to the American average, it’s pretty modest. I eat very little meat. I now cook a lot of my own food using fresh ingredients instead of heating up packaged food or going out to eat. I drive maybe 12 miles a week. I have a small car that gets great gas mileage. And I live in a relatively small place using energy efficient lights and generating much less trash than most of my neighbors.
Still, a 14-acre footprint is huge. Try finding a shoe that size, and you’ll see. If everyone lived like me, we’d need three and a half planets to sustain everyone. I can see it now, the Martians complaining loudly about the unchecked illegal immigration and the Venusians up in arms about the increased traffic.
So I’d love to get my footprint down to 5 or 6 acres, if it’s possible—4.5 if I were really ambitious, which I’m not. I think what dinged me this year was all the hours spent in an airplane during my trip to Australia, and I’ll be spending more time on planes this year, when I attend a couple of weddings and possibly take another H.E.-funded vacation. So … I need to figure out ways to balance that.
Perhaps I can replace the napa cabbage in my diet with grass from outside. Instead of salmon or fish cake, I can dig up worms and bugs for my protein. I could give up the small condo and live in my car, and if I keep it parked near my post office box, I’ll never have to drive, since a grocery store is just across the street. I’ll use candles instead of electricity, and I’ll make all of my own clothes using softly spun cat hair. The cat … she sheds a lot now that the weather is warm again, and one could make sweaters out of the handfuls of fur I collect daily when I brush her hair.
But that’s silly. I don’t need to do all that. The cat hair sweaters alone should suffice.
I could save a dying world by recycling shed cat hair, and if cat-allergic people go extinct, that just makes our collective footprint that much smaller.
Who said solving world problems was hard?
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10 thoughts on “Giant Footprint, Little Pawprint”
Well, I come in at a svelte 11. Thank God for all of those who are willing to live in the brush, eating worms and risking parasitic infection!!!!!!! I prefer running water, electricity, and my Mac! I have seen similar reports to these, and I think that this planet is a whole lot tougher than we give it credit for.
I scored a slothful 21. No way will that score ever be less for me…so my dear cousin, perhaps you can use that lovely long hair of yours to keep you warm, a la Lady Godiva.
Mine was 23–still below average, but just barely. If I didn’t carpool I think I’d of been in big trouble.
Zee is right you need to come up with some alternative benefits/uses for your long hair because the shampoo and water for it have to be leaving quite the ecological imprint. 🙂
In other news, guess who had the game winning hit for Team America in softball tonight? My first career walk-off hit! It was quite the athletic moment.
Well, I don’t feel so bad now when I see 21 and 23, but the 11 makes me feel so guilty!
Have you guys tried putting in another country while keeping the rest of your answers relatively the same? The result is very, VERY different. My footprint is only 1.1 acre big in some countries!
April, the results you give when entering a different country are interesting.. They point to the fact that they are automatically giving you a worse score for being an American. That is troubling.
Not TOO troubling, considering that when we go grocery shopping, it’s far different than going grocery shopping in another country. Many of our fruits and vegetables, many of our meats, may come from farther away than they normally would in other countries.
When I lived in the Philippines with my paternal grandparents, most of our food came from the backyard. They had a huge garden and lots of animals. I still remember the squealing of a pig as they slaughtered it, and I remember the crowing of the roosters when I woke up in the morning. Somewhere, there’s an 8mm film of me dancing like a loon in the garden while behind me, some kid was climbing one of the trees to get either coconuts or bananas — I can’t remember which.
Even my first years in the U.S., my grandparents grew veggies in our backyard. I remember the strawberries and lemons! And we had many Filipino neighbors with bigger gardens, and we’d trade with them for string beans, cabbage, and various other things.
Nowadays, I’d have to go to a farmer’s market to get the same sort of thing. But the nearest Albertson’s is really close and convenient, so that’s where I go. My strawberries used to come from my backyard, and now they come from wherever it is Albertson’s buys them.
And THAT’S why the American footprint is so much bigger. Our food is more likely to be provided by big corporations in another state than by local farmers in the same town.
So, if people in other countries are only scoring a 1.1, I’ll asume that means I get the other 3.4 and then my score is much lower, hooray! Oh wait…
I scored a 14 as well. I think the fact that we recycle regularly is one of the reasons we only put out half as much garbage as our neighbors every week. When I drive, and that’s not often, it’s in a Civic (hooray for rice burners!). This quiz also makes me appreciate my tiny house a little more, especially since there are four of us in it. =p
Yes. The footprint size in America is the result of many things regarding our standard of living, from the type of homes we live in, the general availability (and type) of public transportation, how our energy is provided (coal, nuclear, wind, hydro, solar, etc.), the distance our food (and other goods) is shipped, how sustainable that food was grown/harvested/produced.
My own is an embarrassing 19. I need to get to work.
*looks down and shuffles her toes guiltily*
Umm… 26 here. But, it’s all the jet-setting I do, which I do not see changing for quite a while! Also, I should feel more motivated to change this, but I don’t. Oops. (Hey, at least I am honest!)
And! I compulsorily recycle as and when I can.
Down conscience, down!! :-\
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