Now that we've heard about the ecological footprint,
let's confront our lifestyles head on.
For better or for worse, here's an online calculator:
http://www.mec.ca/Apps/ecoCalc/ecoCalc.jsp
sorry no special linking powers....I am but a mere academic.
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oh lookie. The blog made it happen. I'm so rusty at this thing.
sheesh
I just did the footprint quiz.
Okay, does moving to wolsely cancel anything out?
:)
Hmmm. I checked out this link. Although I thought it was very interesting I was a bit disappointed. After my initial honest response I became curious to see what it would take to hit the target 1.8 planets (I hit 3 on the first try). It took a couple of goes and basically the only way I could hit the target was to: never fly, buy all my food locally and fresh, never drive any vehicles, rarely (or never) use public transportation, walk everywhere, live in a small apartment with energy efficient everything, etc, etc. Personally I found this outcome to be pretty damnable. I mean, for a 26 year old, who's annual income is about 12,000$ while working full time (or equivalent with loans) and who is looking at about 40,000$ in debt all told already, it's pretty hard to even reasonably come close to these targets. Local fresh food is expensive, especially if it’s organic, not too mention my work/school hours rarely permit me the luxury of cooking 3 good meals a day with fresh food, which means packaged food comes in handy simply for its compatibility. On top of that, to get the fresh food, I’d have to travel to the market, which is damn far to walk (Easily 2 hours either way.). I also live in a different province than my family, so on holidays I typically go home so I can eat well for a few weeks, which means I fly (probably at a time when fuel prices are highest) and obviously don’t walk or drive. I have two days where I’m in class until 10:45 at night and then have to Metro all the way home. The rest of the week I usually start work at 8:45am – which means getting up at around 7am. Balancing school and work makes my schedule completely crazy – and most of my friends are living the same style of life. On top of all of this, most people I know my age live in cheap, poorly maintained apartments where nothing is energy efficient and heat seeps out in the winter like air from a popped tire. Not by choice mind you, but because that is what’s affordable.
I’ve become acutely aware of this disparity between what the public thinks student life is like and the reality since attending an Arts & Science Faculty council meeting with Damon last week. Several professors were lamenting about their efforts to explain to kids the “appropriate” amount of time they should allocate to work versus study. I was stunned to hear profs saying that they couldn’t understand kids working 16hrs a week or more (most people I know work closer to 30) because this was unacceptable for a fulltime student. These council members had no concept of the cost of being a student versus the average student wage or government loan allocation (usually anywhere from 250$ to 500$ every 2 weeks). I think that this Eco Test shows a similar lack of grounding in realistic expectations. Reducing your consumption and waste are both good things – but not the only cause of the ecological state of the world. The problems are much deeper rooted in an economy and lifestyle that continuously widens the rift between the rich and poor making it harder and harder for the “average” person to attain these goals. It seems that soon, being ecologically conscious will be something only available to the rich.
i remember a prof once telling me, when i complained (nicely) that she had assigned way too many texts, and i couldn't afford them all as a fulll-time student and almost full-time working guy. her response was, and i quote: "well, maybe you'll just have to skip a couple of meals." yikes.
anyway, i suppose these goals are somewhat difficult to attain. i think that, ultimately, it's going to take an entire global shift in paradigm on every level-- one that says: personal cars are illegal; packaged foods are illegal; strip-mining is illegal; clear-cut forestry is illegal; etc etc etc.
eventually, we're going to have to come to the point as a group where we make these changes happen, or there just won't be anything left to consume, breathe, eat, drink, etc.
Agreed. The problem though, is that the rift between the rich and the poor grows greater every year. Those on the side of the fortunate have less and less of a clue what it’s like to be poor as their personal realities moves farther and farther apart. This morning I was watching a news piece on New Orleans where hundreds of thousands of people are still living without sufficient healthcare – one year after Katrina. (This branches into another interesting topic, which Damon and I talked about, where we end up with a Gattaca style world where the rich, through genetic manipulation, become “perfect” human beings while the poor live desiese-ridden lives.) One of the nurses warned those turning a blind eye that tragedy, in the form of natural disasters, can strike anywhere and happen to anyone – no matter the size of your pocket book. Perhaps what IS needed, in the spirit of ol’Smoky, is a great equalizer?
I scored 5.4 (or three planets,) even though I live, by our culture's standards, a very modest lifestyle (I live in a shared accomodation, cook my own (often meatless) meals & cycle everywhere). However I realize that living in Winnipeg means I am bound to consume more energy than just about anyone in the world by the mere fact that I need to keep my home heated in winter, it's simply unavoidable.
I found it interesting that question 13 assumed that I had a vehicle (which for once in my life I actually do) by asking how much km/litre my car gets and not offering the option of no car. Says a bit about the surveyors assumptions about Canadian life, non?
I think another important question they should ask is if you buy recycled furniture and clothing. I am sure that I save the planet lots of energy not bying brand-new. I scored a 4.6 (2 and a half planets).
yeah, i'm surprised by a lot of ideas/questions assumptions etc in that survey.
so i guess we can all agree it's not hard science, so much as someone's semi-organized take on the issue.
as far as the apocalypse fixing this, these days i'm more optimistic and trusting in our brilliant ingenuity and inventiveness. i mean, we've invented cars and rocket ships and survived a few ice ages, surely we can "invent" a new way of being in the world that doesn't require us all consuming so much. and i mean this as a global culture--an entire worldwide shift in paradigm, rather than simply a better recycling program. not just energy efficient cars, etc, but a way of thinking that says "how do we get rid of all this and just start over?"
daniel quinn theorizies that the ancient incas (i think) and other groups did this--spent a long time developing and building an empire, and then one day realized: "this doesn't work" and simply returned, by choice, to a pastoral lifestyle.
the ? is, how do we even begin to make any real and important changes?
You're right that this test certainly isn't hard science. If you bother to look around on the web, you'll see that there are a bunch of different ones out there. Nevertheless, most of them ask the same kinds of questions. I think the point of the exercise is to note the parts of our lifestyles that are actually totally unsustainable.
Some critics refute the whole concept of ecological footprint. I think those people are living in lala land. One of the basic starting points in my faculty is the 80/20 split: approximately 20% of the world's population consumes about 80% of the world's resources.
No amount of aid, economic growth, or WAR will ever address this fundamental problem without deep structural change.
And yet I think that this position lets us off the hook too easily. It doesn't take a genius to note that states are not interested in leading this paradigm shift. We as people need to lead this- some of this at the institutional level, and all of us at the personal level.
I'm still working on it myself, but I figure if everyone worked on it together, at the same time, we'll get a hell of a lot closer than waiting for the conservative government to come up with an integrated and substantial environmental policy.
The thing with grassroots movements is that we have no idea how successful we are while we go about our business. That may lead to disillusionment. Forever the optimist, I can't help but point out that we also never know where the tipping point is, and how close we might be.
I also don't think that it's more costly to be environmentally friendly, and that it's therefore a privilege held by the wealthy. Conventional produce costs less than organic because it's heavily subsidized. Energy and fuel efficient mean lower bills, and eating local means eating out of your garden. Rather, it is the maintainance of our current socio-economic structure that is in the interest of the rich.
I scored a footprint of 7, or 3.9 planets required. However, I believe most of this is because of the way I make my living, which I was honest enough to include in the quiz. I spend the majority of my working time in a vehicle driving on the highway. With other people, I might add. We log well over 20,000 km per year driving for work purposes. In fact, I do almost all my driving with other people. I also fly occasionally as warranted (i.e. when it is less expensive and feasible than driving). And for vacations, when I can get 'em!
On the household side, we have a two storey home which 5 people (2 of them being small children) occupy. I recently had new insulation and a high-efficiency furnace installed. Had I not been able to work, I would not have been able to afford this, and my consumption of natural gas would be much higher than it currently is.
Now, I am aware of all these factors, and I know how they are interconnected. A simple quiz like this cannot possibly cover everything, and we shouldn't expect it to. It has to make a lot of assumptions about lifestyles and people's choices. I mean, a band on tour just cannot take public transportation between gigs!!
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