My Environmental Footprint

1. My results for the footprint quiz were that it would take 4.67 earths for all people to live with the same lifestyle I have. This was actually not very surprising to me, as I had just read that the average American footprint is even more than that. If anything, I am surprised that my footprint was not worse! This does not mean at all that I am content with my footprint, just that I assumed mine would be higher than the average Americans because I live in a more affluent community than the average American. I was actually surprised that only the housing section of my footprint was higher than the average Americans. It is incredibly depressing that both my footprint and the average American's footprint are this high.

2. "Culture" is the societal patterns and behaviors that are created by an individual society or community. Some examples of culture are art, music, architecture, religion, and sometimes ethical constructs. In my opinion, culture is inherently connected to how we treat our environment. Throughout history, different cultures and civilizations have created community values as far as how they will interact with the environment. It seems to me as though the more modern the civilizations are, the less respect our communities seems to have for the environment. For example, we currently live in a very materialistic society that encourages wastefulness and gluttony. This is a very different social construct and attitude towards nature than the Native Americans had.

3. Overall, I was both horrified by how wasteful Americans are in particular. We are clearly burning through our resources far to quickly. However, I was also uplifted by the optimism of many scientists about how quickly we can turn this situation around if we all choose to live slightly simpler lifestyles.