The Assignment
1. Read the background information.
2. Calculate your own Ecological Footprint at http://www.myfootprint.org/en/ . Then use
http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/page/calculators/ .
3. Look up the Ecological Footprint of someone your age living in another developed country
on a different continent. Most of the information you need is found at the links listed at
the end of this document.
4. Look up the Ecological Footprint of someone your age living in an undeveloped country.
5. Answer these questions:
(a) How many earths would it take to support the entire world’s population at your initial
standard of living?
(b) Which other developed country did you choose? Which undeveloped country did you choose?
How many earths would it take to do the same for the other two areas of the world you have
chosen?
(c) What do you attribute these differences, if any, to be from?
(d) List specific changes that you could make that would alter your own ecological footprint here
at home.
(e) What difficulties do you encounter when thinking of altering your ecological footprint?
(f) What troubles do you see globally in trying to alter our ecological footprint?
Websites that will help you do the exercise and interpret your results.
Ecological Footprints for various countries
 http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/page/footprint_for_nations/
How to reduce your footprint:
 http://www.myfootprint.org/en/take_action/reduce_your_footprint/
 http://www.wwf.org.uk/what_we_do/changing_the_way_we_live/cities/top_ten_ways_to
_reduce_your_ecological_footprint.cfm
 http://brudaimonia.blogspot.com/2007/05/ten-easy-ways-to-reduce-yourecological.html
What you can do to help the environment in your daily life
 http://www.panda.org/how_you_can_help/at_home/index.cfm
 http://www.panda.org/news_facts/publications/living_planet_report/solutions/index.cfm
About the ecological footprint:

http://www.footprintnetwork.org/gfn_sub.php?content=footprint_overview
Background Reading
Human population size impacts the environment and our planet in complex ways; understanding
this goes beyond simple counts of how many people there are on the planet or in a given country.
If we truly want to live sustainably over the long-term, one needs to consider the ecological
impact our lifestyle choices have on the Earth and its systems. This is important because each of
us requires and depends on many natural resources (e.g. air, water, land, minerals) and
ecosystem processes (e.g. hydrological cycles, photosynthesis) to live, yet paradoxically, our
activities often severely deplete or damage these vital resources thereby making them
unavailable over the long-term.
An important facet of studying this human influence on the environment involves examining the
way we use resources versus the availability of those resources over the long-term. If we know
and understand how we use resources, we can take steps and make adjustments to ensure that
the resources we depend on will be available to us and for generations to come.
In this exercise, you will explore the concept of Ecological Footprint . What is an “Ecological
Footprint”? Put simply, an ecological footprint is the amount of the earth’s land, water and other
resources required to produce the goods and services used by an average person in a specific
country.
An interesting approach to help one understand the use and viability of resources is by looking at
resource use on a per capita basis. By looking at resource use on a per capita basis, you are
looking at resource use in a manner that is independent of population size. You could think of
this as allowing one to compare “apples and oranges.” This allows one to see the impact that
individuals with different lifestyles or living in different countries have on the Earth.
Understanding the “whys” behind these patterns is an important step in making adjustments in
resource use.
Table 1: Per Capita Ecological Footprint (Hectares of land per person)
Level
High
Medium
Low
Country
United States
Netherlands
India
Hectares/person
10.9
5.9
1.0
As you can see, there are great differences between ecological footprints of typical individuals in
these countries. What does this mean for the environment? For one, a high per capita rate of
resource use means that each additional person in that country has an larger impact on the
environment than someone from a country with a lower per capita rate. That is, a person in
Country A with a high footprint literally treads on the earth more heavily than a person with a
lower footprint. Therefore, one can see that a given country with a larger population size may
possibly have a smaller per capita footprint than another country with a smaller population size.
When you take the per capita rate and multiply it by a country’s total population, you get the
total amount of land needed to support the population of that country.
Table 2: Total Ecological Footprint for 3 Selected Countries
Level
High
Medium
Low
Country
United States
Netherlands
India
Hectares
3.4 Billion
94 Million
1 Billion
Note that although India’s population is much, much larger than that of the US (1.1+ billion vs.
304 million), the Total Ecological Footprint reflects our much higher per capita use of resources.
One way to look at the totality of humanity’s ecological footprint is to plot the demand humans
place on the earth vs. the earth’s capacity to provide (biocapacity). Because there is only one
Earth, this is represented by “1.0” and we look at how much less or more of the earth’s capacity
we require to live at a given time. The difference between the earth’s capacity and our actual use
are either ecological credits or deficits.
Figure 1: The ratio between the world’s demand and the world’s biocapacity in each year, and
how this ratio has changed over time. Expressed in terms of “number of Earths,” the biocapacity
of the Earth is always 1 (represented by the horizontal grey line). This graph shows how
humanity has moved from using, in net terms, about half the planet’s biocapacity in 1961 to 1.2
times the biocapacity of the Earth in 2001. The global “ecological deficit” of 0.2 Earths is equal to
the globe’s ecological overshoot.
With the knowledge of our individual and national footprints, we as individuals and as nation
citizens can make choices that affect long- and short-term outcomes. That is, we are empowered
by our knowledge, if we choose to utilize that power.
As seen in Figure 2, the extent that we try to implement changes in our choices and behaviors
could have implications for our future and that of our offspring. Imagine also, the potential
changes these types of changes, if implemented, could have on geopolitics.
Figure
Three
2:
Ecological Footprint scenarios. Two may lead to sustainability..
We can break down the ecological footprint globally, as in Figure 3, (or by nation) and begin to
understand the “ingredients” that lead to the totals. This is useful when one considers where to
address the problems or where adjustments can be made that will reduce footprint size.
Figure 3: Shows the components of the world’s average per person Ecological Footprint.
Lastly, If you look at the change of humanity’s footprint over time, you can see that the changes
have not been uniform across the globe. This, of course, has implications for geopolitics, and can
also change the current divisions between “developed” and “underdeveloped” countries to
divisions that reflect ecological debt and creditor status.