Ecological Footprint Response

The first of three tools in Jim Merkel’s proposed path toward global living in Radical Simplicity is ecological foot printing. Ecological foot printing is an important process because it is a primary measure of the degree to which your life is sustainable, a marker in your path toward global living. The first of the four stages of sustainable living is unconscious unsustainability; ecological foot printing has the power to bring people out of this first stage and on to the next, conscious unsustainability. Awareness is the first step toward change, and this exercise has certainly made me more aware of my massive impact on the environment and has motivated me to make changes to my unsustainable lifestyle.

After a lot of digging for information, a few calls to my personal financial managers (aka my parents) I was able to fill out the majority of the details of the charts and grids to calculate my ecological footprint. My monthly footprint was surprisingly more than I thought it would be, I like to consider myself less consumptive and better eating habits than the average American, I gave up beef 8 years ago, I tend not to eat a lot of meat, primarily poultry, and I’m all about fruits and veggies, but my footprint was still 20,005.5 sq. feet. That amount of land is just short of the 4.7 acres Merkel suggest that the global population can maintain if consuming 50% of the lands bioproductivity. I severely underestimated my eating habits and the amount of land needed to supply for them. I am so far removed from what I consume on a day to day basis. Plates of food get set out on the hot plates and I eat them, I do not have control of whether my food is organic or locally grown, unless I were to move out to an apartment with a kitchen and prepare my own meals, but as a first year college student that is improbable.

Another major contribution to the massive size of my ecological footprint is my Monthly Goods total. The large amount of money I spend on my university education is a significant impact of 38,320 sq. feet. I was extremely surprised by this, how does my learning take up 7.9 acres? I did not consider my education to be a significant negative impact on the environment; I would like to think that my parents (and I) are spending 30,000 dollars a year so I can make the world better place, not the contrary. This proves that every single one of our practices, even education, a practice that is generally considered in a positive light, has a ecological footprint. Another significant footprint within my monthly goods is the amount of money I spend on health insurance.. Health insurance is something that I would be wary of giving up, although I am in good health as of now, it is nice to know that I am protected in case of the odd medical visit. As a college student, I live in an 11 by 13 foot dorm room with three roommates, thus my housing footprint is relatively minimal, just under an acre, 4320 square feet. However as happy as I am that I have a minimal housing footprint, I could not foresee myself living in what is essentially a cube with a bed and a desk for the rest of my life, but I also do not want to perpetuate my large ecological footprint. Another consequence of living in a dorm is that my transportation is limited to the odd bus trip to Santa Monica or the rare trip back home to San Diego, altogether not too much (relatively speaking, though still room for improvement) 2,340 square feet.

I was alarmed at how large my ecological footprint was, although I have a smaller impact than the average American, my 17.8 acre footprint as opposed to the average American’s 24.2 acre print. I do not feel extremely wasteful or consumptive, proving that much of my impact is unconscious. As a student I am removed from the food I eat, I do not pay an electricity or water bill for my dorm, my parents pay for my education as well as my monthly spending. Once I consume something I don’t see it ever again. I don’t pay my bills, fiscally, as well as environmentally speaking. I would have to radically cut down on every aspect of my life to achieve the goal of 4.7 acre footprint. I cannot make that drastic change at this point in my life, but I am fully prepared to make many smaller changes to decrease my impact immediately, including following vegetarian diet and altogether decreasing my food intake and waste, decreasing my car travel from San Diego to LA either by taking trains or carpooling, and spending less on things like entertainment , there is so many opportunities for entertainment that are free and I should focus on enjoying them, nature specifically. Long term I would like to change my lifestyle to more sustainable and ecologically conscious practices, possibly incorporating the more drastic changes Merkel advocates, like relying on my own garden produce and on biking for transportation. It is overwhelming to think that I could make enough changes to lower my footprint by 13 acres, but I will lower my footprint one step at a time and gradually be able to lead a simple life.