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This is my idea of humor, by the way.
Nov. 22nd, 2004 04:07 pmStolen from ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
qornelius: Ecological Footprint Calculator. It's extremely simplified; I was surprised at how few questions and choices there were. Even so, it's interesting. My score was an embarrassing 11.7 acres (4.7 hectares), which, while lower than average, is still twice the biologically productive space available per capita. To carry this a little farther, if the advice of the Brundtland Commission is taken into consideration, it would still take 2.5 earths to support the entire world population at my living conditions. This, of course, is in spite of my 0.4 acre (0.2 hectare) transportation footprint, and answering questions using the options that best apply to the whole household (this system as well as other inhabitants of this house), which of course skewer the food and housing footprints higher than they actually are.
On the other hand, taking these matters into consideration and adjusting answers accordingly only results in a 2.1 acre loss (0.8 hectares), for a new score of 9.6 acres (3.9 hectares)-- which still requires 2 earths to support everyone in the human population at my standard of living.
Now, on the other hand, if everyone was an underfed vegan who wasted nothing and bought everything locally, never drove a car and always carpooled in a car with amazing gas mileage or took public transportation everywhere concievable and never, ever flew anywhere, lived in a tiny house with 10 other people with green electricity suppliers and energy efficient appliances... the final score would be 4.3 acres (1.7 hectares), which is about 1.1 acres (0.5 hectare) below the biologically productive space available per person. 20% of the biosphere could be set aside for other species without requiring more than one earth, or the recommended 12% of the Brundtland Commission could be used and 8% of the biosphere would remain as insurance for population growth.
This means, of course, that no one could ever live in the Northeast of the U.S. and maintain their small ecological footprint in regards to food. Let's presume I was a vegan and always ate locally grown food. What would I eat in the winter? Snow? Acorns buried by squirrels in the fall? Tree bark? The only way to survive off of "local food" in the winter in this area would be to hunt the local wildlife, which goes right up against the whole concept of never eating animal products. The only other options would be to either migrate seasonally (in a way that wouldn't effect the transportation footprint), or stuff oneself during the more plentiful seasons and hibernate during the winter, neither of which would have a very good effect on the national economy.
Now, of course, there are ways around the difficulties I just mentioned-- effective use of greenhouses, for one --but my point isn't that it's impossible to have that low of an impact. My point is that it's much more difficult than even advocates of drastic lifestyle changes make it out to be. It's relatively easy to live like that if you are the numerical minority, but in the event that the entire world were to take on such a lifestyle, it would require such an earth-shaking shift in the global culture and the way that every single area of human civilization is conducted within such a relatively short amount of time that, even in the face of near-immediate extinction, I doubt it could actually happen. It's asking for too much, too late. To realistically create such a vast change in humanity's way of dealing with the world, the movement would have had to have started prior to the Industrial Revolution!
That's not to say the movement is worthless. I'm simply saying that by itself, it won't do what it's trying to do. Instead, I say it should continue as it always has, but with an additional alliance to the concept of mass colonization of space.
After all, let's face it. At this rate, we are going to need more space.
qornelius: Ecological Footprint Calculator. It's extremely simplified; I was surprised at how few questions and choices there were. Even so, it's interesting. My score was an embarrassing 11.7 acres (4.7 hectares), which, while lower than average, is still twice the biologically productive space available per capita. To carry this a little farther, if the advice of the Brundtland Commission is taken into consideration, it would still take 2.5 earths to support the entire world population at my living conditions. This, of course, is in spite of my 0.4 acre (0.2 hectare) transportation footprint, and answering questions using the options that best apply to the whole household (this system as well as other inhabitants of this house), which of course skewer the food and housing footprints higher than they actually are.On the other hand, taking these matters into consideration and adjusting answers accordingly only results in a 2.1 acre loss (0.8 hectares), for a new score of 9.6 acres (3.9 hectares)-- which still requires 2 earths to support everyone in the human population at my standard of living.
Now, on the other hand, if everyone was an underfed vegan who wasted nothing and bought everything locally, never drove a car and always carpooled in a car with amazing gas mileage or took public transportation everywhere concievable and never, ever flew anywhere, lived in a tiny house with 10 other people with green electricity suppliers and energy efficient appliances... the final score would be 4.3 acres (1.7 hectares), which is about 1.1 acres (0.5 hectare) below the biologically productive space available per person. 20% of the biosphere could be set aside for other species without requiring more than one earth, or the recommended 12% of the Brundtland Commission could be used and 8% of the biosphere would remain as insurance for population growth.
This means, of course, that no one could ever live in the Northeast of the U.S. and maintain their small ecological footprint in regards to food. Let's presume I was a vegan and always ate locally grown food. What would I eat in the winter? Snow? Acorns buried by squirrels in the fall? Tree bark? The only way to survive off of "local food" in the winter in this area would be to hunt the local wildlife, which goes right up against the whole concept of never eating animal products. The only other options would be to either migrate seasonally (in a way that wouldn't effect the transportation footprint), or stuff oneself during the more plentiful seasons and hibernate during the winter, neither of which would have a very good effect on the national economy.
Now, of course, there are ways around the difficulties I just mentioned-- effective use of greenhouses, for one --but my point isn't that it's impossible to have that low of an impact. My point is that it's much more difficult than even advocates of drastic lifestyle changes make it out to be. It's relatively easy to live like that if you are the numerical minority, but in the event that the entire world were to take on such a lifestyle, it would require such an earth-shaking shift in the global culture and the way that every single area of human civilization is conducted within such a relatively short amount of time that, even in the face of near-immediate extinction, I doubt it could actually happen. It's asking for too much, too late. To realistically create such a vast change in humanity's way of dealing with the world, the movement would have had to have started prior to the Industrial Revolution!
That's not to say the movement is worthless. I'm simply saying that by itself, it won't do what it's trying to do. Instead, I say it should continue as it always has, but with an additional alliance to the concept of mass colonization of space.
After all, let's face it. At this rate, we are going to need more space.
