Ecological Footprint Assignment (Hanson)

My total ecological footprint was 11.1 hectares and I can explain why, just read. I would assume that my hectare score is extremely high due to the comparisons with peers which levelled below two digits. The highest-ranking elements in my list include

  1. Shelter – Hectacre count: 480
  2. Transportation – Hectacre count: 280
  3. Food – Hectacre count: 185

The ten things that affect my carbon footprint are:

  • I have another home that is not shared with another family
  • The number of rooms per person is 5-10
  • I sometimes spend time travelling with just my family in my car
  • I usually spend around 1/2 an hour to 1 hour per day in the car
  • My family uses more than two cars
  • My family owns a large car (SUV)
  • I usually spend around an hour on the computer a day
  • We have eaten organic beef a few times
  • Some of the clothes are bought brand new (countered with handed down clothes)
  • My showers are usually 1-2 minutes

The five things that I can do are:

  • Spend less time during transportation, try walking and biking more
  • Take cold showers (Probably affecting carbon footprint)
  • Spend less time on the computer
  • Wear more of my clothing (although they all look the same)
  • Try a more organic diet

I decided on these five changes because of their convenience and as a personal challenge. These mostly benefit me not only in reducing my carbon footprint but also building good habits personally. Taking less time on the computer may be a good way to also focus on study in print form, giving my eyes a break, etc. These all are habits that affect my personal habit improvement too. Along with that, these don’t require anything from my parents, so I don’t have to bother them.

Reflection:

After the week that I have challenged myself to these daring tasks, I achieved the understanding of how hard cold showers are, but also spent less time on the computer, and overall giving me something new to experience. It kind of broke the pre-programmed habit for productivity and approached it in a more disconnected way, which internally let me be more productive. I believe that this was more about my personal habits than I have expected, not only achieving a lower environmental footprint but also exploring many different habits that I wish to continue beyond this project. During these weeks, I was able to bike to my destination sometimes when it was on my mountain. Also, I was able to try cold showers, disconnect from the computer when it was not about work, and try a more organic diet. I assume that through this experience, I was able to reach a higher understanding of the necessary steps in order to lower our carbon footprint, and the scale of the lifestyle change we would have to face in order to solve the incubating problem of climate change. In the end, I will say that this was a worthwhile experience, and I encourage others reading this to try it out too, not only for the environment but for yourself too.