Reducing your ecological footprint
Ecological footprint is a term that was coined in 1992 by Canadian ecologist William Rees. It measures the amount of natural resources an individual, a community, or a country consumes in a given year. Footprinting is a measurement of people's demand on nature and compares human consumption of natural resources with the earth's ecological capacity to regenerate them. It is now widely use as an indicator of environmental sustainability, and is commonly used to explore the sustainability of individual lifestyles, goods and services, organizations, industry sectors, neighborhoods, cities, regions and nations.
The last special issue of TIME magazine on global warming has a very good article that gives 51 things we can do to reduce our ecological footprint. What I like about the article is a scale that shows the impact of the action, the time horizon, and the feel-good factor. Some of these actions require a collective change (i.e. companies, government), while others depend upon individual choices. I was surprised to see that some personal actions have a great impact on the ecological footprint, rivaling the collective ones. Here are four individual actions that have a large positive impact on the environment:
Ride the bus
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More than 30% of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions are caused by cars. Public transit saves an estimated 1.4 billion gallons of gas annually, which translates into about 1.5 million tons of carbon dioxide.
If you live in the San Diego area, the city has a decent public transportation system. About two months ago I decided to take take the bus or the trolley at least twice a week. For a while I used the excuse of not knowing what routes to take, but the San Diego Metropolitan Transit System website has a useful website to figure out the best routes and times (http://www.sdcommute.com/Rider_Information/Trip_Planning/index.asp). You will discover that using public transportation instead of driving has some other advantages besides reducing your ecological footprint: You don't have to get stressed about traffic and you will have extra time to read.
Skip the steak
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The international meat industry generates about 18% of the world's greenhouse-gas emissions, even more than the transportation industry- according to a 2006 U.N's Food and Agriculture Organization. Most of those emissions come from nitrous oxide in manure and methane, which is a byproduct of bovine digestion. Methane produces a warming effect 23 times greater than carbon, while nitrous oxide warming effect is 296 times greater.
By switching to vegetarianism a person reduces its carbon footprint by up to 1.5 tons of carbon dioxide a year. In comparison, switching to a hybrid car reduces an individual's carbon footprint by up to one ton.
Say no to plastic bags
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That plastic bag that you got in the supermarket has a usable lifetime of approximately five minutes (what usually takes you to take your groceries from the register counter to your house). But it takes up to 1,000 years to biodegrade in landfills that emit harmful greenhouse gases.
Every year, more than 500 billion plastic bags are distributed worldwilde (California produces 20 billion bags, a staggering 4% of the world's total!!). Annually, it takes about 12 million barrels of oil to produce the world's grocery bags.
They add a tremendous cost to cities like San Diego that are able to recycle less than 5 percent of the plastic bags tossed out by people (read a San Diego Union Tribute article on the issue ). Additionaly, many of these plastic bags end up in the oceans where animals die when they ingest them or get caught in them.
The solution is very simple: use a cloth bag or tell the cashier you don't need a bag when you can carry things without the need of a bag. Brake the bag habit .
Consume less
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One of the three Rs (Recycle, Reuse, Reduce), reducing your consumption of goods, is the one with the highest positive impact in the environment. The less you buy and consume, the smaller your ecological footprint in the environment will be, and the extra waste produced will be zero.
Saul
