My footprint...
I found this quiz at feministe - its kind of interesting. Its a simple quiz which allows me to work out what sort of environmental disaster I'm brewing up for my friends kids when they go on to inherit the earth.
These were my results;
CATEGORY GLOBAL HECTARES
FOOD 1
MOBILITY 0.6
SHELTER 0.7
GOODS/SERVICES 1
TOTAL FOOTPRINT 3.3
IN COMPARISON, THE AVERAGE ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT IN YOUR COUNTRY IS 5.3 GLOBAL HECTARES PER PERSON.
WORLDWIDE, THERE EXISTS 1.8 BIOLOGICALLY PRODUCTIVE GLOBAL HECTARES PER PERSON.
IF EVERYONE LIVED LIKE YOU, WE WOULD NEED 1.8 PLANETS.
So I'm doing better than the average Brit, which frankly is depressing. Depressing because I'm not sure there's a lot more I can be doing. More I should be doing, clearly.
I may not have an accurate score, because its hard to know exactly what they are getting at. I don't actually know how many metres squared my house is. Its a fine size - a three bed ex council 50's semi of which there are 1000's around the country - but not massive. I also put that the amount of rubbish I put out is the same as my neighbours, and I just don't know if that's true either - we all have black bins, green bins for compostable rubbish and a black box for non compostable recyclable waste (except tetrapaks and plastic, but I've blogged about that already). I probably could do more to reuse things - I do the basics - reusable stuff to charity shops, resealable containers to freeze leftover food and I re-use plastic bags. I do have to strike a balance though, particularly as someone else has to re use the stuff for me.
In terms of energy use - we do have long life light bulbs etc and religiously turn things off. Our company is reasonable on sustainable grounds (there may be better). Car use though, is A Bit Tricky. To use the bus, which I love to do, and living as I do on the only accessible bus route here requires a ten minute walk to the Park and Ride, which doesn't leave me much battery to potter properly round town, carrying my shopping on the back. I could get new batteries more frequently - but they are upwards of £450 a time - which is not inconsequential cashwise.
Foodwise I'm confused. I'll blog at more length about food issues, but in short I clicked the answer which was mostly local, and meat occassionally (this being for our house - The Doctor being a committed meat eater) so I'm not sure how we scored so badly - I'd have thought that in the UK that probably that was a reasonably ethical way of being - as most protein sources have to be imported?
These were my results;
CATEGORY GLOBAL HECTARES
FOOD 1
MOBILITY 0.6
SHELTER 0.7
GOODS/SERVICES 1
TOTAL FOOTPRINT 3.3
IN COMPARISON, THE AVERAGE ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT IN YOUR COUNTRY IS 5.3 GLOBAL HECTARES PER PERSON.
WORLDWIDE, THERE EXISTS 1.8 BIOLOGICALLY PRODUCTIVE GLOBAL HECTARES PER PERSON.
IF EVERYONE LIVED LIKE YOU, WE WOULD NEED 1.8 PLANETS.
So I'm doing better than the average Brit, which frankly is depressing. Depressing because I'm not sure there's a lot more I can be doing. More I should be doing, clearly.
I may not have an accurate score, because its hard to know exactly what they are getting at. I don't actually know how many metres squared my house is. Its a fine size - a three bed ex council 50's semi of which there are 1000's around the country - but not massive. I also put that the amount of rubbish I put out is the same as my neighbours, and I just don't know if that's true either - we all have black bins, green bins for compostable rubbish and a black box for non compostable recyclable waste (except tetrapaks and plastic, but I've blogged about that already). I probably could do more to reuse things - I do the basics - reusable stuff to charity shops, resealable containers to freeze leftover food and I re-use plastic bags. I do have to strike a balance though, particularly as someone else has to re use the stuff for me.
In terms of energy use - we do have long life light bulbs etc and religiously turn things off. Our company is reasonable on sustainable grounds (there may be better). Car use though, is A Bit Tricky. To use the bus, which I love to do, and living as I do on the only accessible bus route here requires a ten minute walk to the Park and Ride, which doesn't leave me much battery to potter properly round town, carrying my shopping on the back. I could get new batteries more frequently - but they are upwards of £450 a time - which is not inconsequential cashwise.
Foodwise I'm confused. I'll blog at more length about food issues, but in short I clicked the answer which was mostly local, and meat occassionally (this being for our house - The Doctor being a committed meat eater) so I'm not sure how we scored so badly - I'd have thought that in the UK that probably that was a reasonably ethical way of being - as most protein sources have to be imported?
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