October 25, 2005
Ecology Weekly Assignment #1
My ecological footprint is 18, with the breakdown below.
Category Acres
Food 3.5
Mobility 2.5
Shelter 5.9
Goods/Services 5.7
Total Footprint 18
In comparison, the average ecological footprint in my country, the US, is 24 acres per person. Worldwide, there exists 4.5 biologically productive acres per person. If everyone lived like me, we would need 3.9 planets.
This shocked me. I had thought that I am conserving already. After all, I seldom eat process food, don’t drive, and use CFL bulbs at home. But how much more I can do!
I can improve on:
FOOD
Currently, I eat meat once or twice a week. The only dairy I eat is yogurt. In place of milk and cheese, I take soymilk and tofu.
For taste and health, I avoid processed and packaged foods. I think this preference lowered my score. From this quiz, I now know that when people reduce processed and packaged food intake, they are not only reducing the food ecological footprint, but also the mobility and goods/services footprint.
Waste. I read that 25% of the foods we buy are wasted, through spoilage or thrown-away leftovers. I want to do better at this. For example, I like spinach very much but have thrown them away many times because I forget to cook them and their delicate leaves yellow and become soggy.
Place of origin. Until this quiz, I haven’t cared to ask where my food is from, only looking at appearance and price when I buy. Going forward, I will look for origin labels. Although this might be hard because I live in Queens, where there are few farmers market or organic good stores, maybe I can substitute a percentage of groceries with farmers market products here in the city.
MOBILITY
I am happy for once that I do not know how to drive. It turns out that not driving, not owning, and not hitching a ride on a friend’s car is a good thing for the environment.
Because I live in Queens and work in Manhattan, I take 30 minutes of subway everyday. I wish I could reduce this fuel usage. But until I move to the city, it might be hard to slash this score, thought I will keep it in mind. When I travel long distance, I usually take the train and avoid Greyhound, for the better view. But it seems that neither is good. So must I curb travels?
Airplane travel. Before this survey, I never thought that flying would be wasteful. But the quiz is right, those monster planes use up so much fuel, especially so because I often go overseas. I will try to reduce non essential business trips and arrange for conference call or video conference instead. Not only is long-haul travel uncomfortable, it is also bad for the planet.
HOUSING
Number of people in my household. This is something I cannot reduce. I am living with my parents. Since I am the only child, I think I hit the minimum on this for the time being. If I do get married and have children, I will serious think about how many kids to have. I think no more than 2.
Laundry. I do a good job on this. We sometime hand wash lightweight clothes. Also, we always clothesline dry; we don’t have a dryer.
Lighting. A few years ago, my mom replaced all the light bulbs in the house with CFL light bulbs . In the beginning, I complained about them being too dark, because I was used to 100 watt bulbs. But now I am very comfortable in CFL lighting and think my eyesight was previously hurt by the 100 watt bulb on my desk.
Number of days my home is air conditioned. I also do a good job on this. I can take heat much better than I take coldness. In fact, I have gone through the past few summers without a/c in my room. My parents tried to convince me to get one for my room, but I have always refused. To me, summer is hot and winter is cold, you deal with it by taking off or putting on layers.
Degrees Fahrenheit daytime thermostat setting for heating. We are rarely home during the day, so the thermostat is at 60. We turn it on 70-72 when we return. The heat is on from late November to early March. I like to be warm, but am beginning to warm my bed with an electric blanket instead of heating the whole house to an ideal 80.
Hours per day that I watch TV or use a computer at home. I don’t watch TV at home, preferring to read, clean up, chat, or sleep. Moreover, because I kiss a computer 15 hours a day, I now stay away from any computer as much as possible.
Minutes per day I am in the shower. My showers last 10-15 minutes. I think keeping my hair short can help reduce the time and trouble.