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Ecological Footprint? Ask an Eighth-Grader

By Dee Williams

A few months ago, I was interviewed by a couple of eight-grade students. They were interested in my little house, and wanted to know if I had calculated my carbon footprint or ecological footprint. I chuckled (in a knowing sort of way) and cleverly moved on to something else.

In reality, I had only the vaguest understanding of carbon and ecological footprints. I knew they were important and I had one, or shared one… or something. But that was about it.

To be honest, I was embarrassed by the question. After all, I work for the Department of Ecology… I should know about ecological things. And, I live in a house the size of tool shed. I drive a pokey little electric truck and shop at the Co-op. That shows I have a good-enough ecological footprint, right? And carbon, well, that’s everywhere. Why worry about that?

So what was the big deal? Were those eighth-graders on to something? I decided to check it out by super-sleuthing the internet. I found a website at http://www.earthday.net/footprint and here’s what I discovered:

1. Eighth-graders are smart. They know a lot and I should pay more attention to what they are saying. If they’re worried about global warming, ecological footprints, dying polar bears, and stuff like that… well, maybe I should listen.
2. Calculating your ecological footprint can be a complex process (some would call it a tedious, pain-in-the-neck). There are a bunch of things that you have to review: what types of food you eat, how far did your food travel to get to your plate, where do you live, how big is your house, how far do you drive, etc. Fortunately, you can ball-park your footprint by taking a short quiz. It took me less than ten minutes on the internet to estimate my footprint.
3. An ecological footprint is measured in acres. It’s the amount of land and water needed to maintain your level of consumption. The average American needs about 24-acres to get by. Over half of that space is taken up by trees that are used to combat global warming gases (they’re needed to produce oxygen which counter-acts the carbon dioxide released by burning fossil fuels). I think 24-acres sounds nice. I’d love to have a little farm with lots of trees. Unfortunately, there simply isn’t enough space on the planet for me (and you, and the folks in China and India) to live on 24-acres. Realistically, we each need to live on about two acres.
4. It takes about six acres to maintain my lifestyle. Most of my ecological footprint is attached to food. Apparently, it takes a lot of resources to raise chickens, cows, and other live-stock. It takes a lot of resources to package-up coffee, beer and bananas. The Earthday Quiz people told me that “if everyone lived like 'me', we’d need 1.3 planets”. They included a little picture of one and a third blue-green planets. #}

   I chewed on the Quiz results for a couple of days. My thoughts ranged from frustration and despair (sounding something like: “but I like my non-vegetarian life… I don’t want to ride the bus... I hate eating nettles day after day”) to sobering conviction. I decided to plant a little garden. I’ve been watching the peas bloom, and I can’t wait to see what happens to the corn.

   I talked with my friends about my new revelation, and we agreed that bumping into your ecological footprint is kind of like discovering you haven’t cooked enough food for dinner. More and more people keep showing up, and there’s less and less mashed-potato to go around… time to start thinking about how to puff-up the spuds and shrink-down the appetites. That would be the nice thing to do.

   It seems the eighth-graders were onto something.

   Dee Williams is an inspector with the Department of Ecology.

   
   

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