Journal 12

My ecological footprint was about average for the nation, but that is entirely too high. While doing the quiz I actually had to think about some of the things I do on a daily bases and realized that I thought I was doing a better job than what I am. What I noticed is by cutting down on one thing I could cut down on others at the same time. A large way I could do it, would be to cut my trips to the store down, this would reduce my miles travled in a car and also cut back on the amount of food I purchased from restaurants since most trips would be to the supermarket for large quanities of food. If I did not live in the dorms I could have a small garden which again would cut down on my usage of the environment but also give back to the earth. Most of the appliances in my home are energy efficient and all the lights are, but I do not unplug items when I am not using them, that would cut back on usage. If I could work on the small things, a large cutback would be seen, it would not drastically change my lifestyle, but it would have an effect on how much my carbon footprint was. Every little reduction helps, and if over a large scale it could really reduce what is happening to the world as a whole. When I saw it would take 5 earths to sustain the whole world living on my lifestyle it made me think how selfish I am being, if I have that much effect, what would happen if it was only 4 earths or less.