Assignment 1 – Environmental Footprint
TABLE A. Ecological Footprint
Footprint Results
(Answers to the following 2 questions will be given upon completion of footprint)
If everyone lived like you, how many planet Earth’s would we need?
To support your lifestyle, how many productive global acres area needed?
Ecological Footprint Breakdown
(Values can be obtained by scrolling over pie chart generated at completion of
footprint)
Percent of emissions from Food
Percent of emissions from Shelter
Percent of emissions from Mobility
Percent of emissions from Goods
Percent of emissions from Services
TABLE B. Household Emissions
Household Emissions Results
(Answers can be found in bar graphs following completion of calculator)
What are your current household emissions?
What are the U.S. average household emissions?
What was your reduced emissions?
125943
103750
114730
Household Emissions Savings
(Answers can be found above bar graphs
If you took all actions you would reduce annual emissions by:
If you took all actions your potential dollar savings would be:
Your new total annual estimated CO2 emissions:
11213
715
114730
QUESTIONS
1. Based on your findings from the ecological footprint calculator, how many Earth’s
would be needed to support the global population if everyone lived your same lifestyle?
Additionally, describe the impacts on the Earth’s climate, biodiversity, and economic
security if every individual in the world lived your same lifestyle and discuss why these
impacts would occur.
Answer =
2. Based on your findings from the ecological footprint calculator, what are the 3 everyday
products and practices that contribute most to your environmental footprint?
Answer =
3. Based on the information from the reduce emissions section of the household emissions
calculator, name at least 2 actions that you can take to limit your carbon emissions?
Include in your answer the exact dollar savings and the weight of carbon dioxide that
could be saved (from the calculator results) for each of these two actions.
Answer =
Actions
Savings($)
Savings(CO2)
Turn down my household's heating thermostat by
30 pounds of CO2 per
$3 annual savings
6 degrees Fahrenheit on winter nights.
year
Enable the sleep feature on my computer and
monitor.
$12 annual savings
106 pounds of CO2e per
year
4. Does reducing the size of your ecological footprint necessarily mean reducing your
quality of life? Why or why not? Are there ways of enhancing your quality of life while
lowering your environmental impact?
Answer =
No reducing the ecological footprint does not necessarily means reducing the standard
of life. We just need to reduce the consumption of natural resources and energy and
stop wasting it as much as possible. If we take bus for some journies rather than private
cars, it does not mean our way of living is bad. Rather we should try to use public
transports as much as possible.
Yes, we can sit together in the same room when we don’t have work so that we can save
some energy being wasted. We can go together with family memebers rather than going
seperately in cars. We can use CFL’s and low energy lightimgs and LED’s to beautify
our place and reduce the ecological footprint at the same time.
References
Any sources utilized in your question answers should be listed here.