Ecological Footprint

Exercise 2 (Week 2): Calculating Your Ecological Footprint
The average American’s ecological footprint is 24 acres. What does this mean? The best way to put this number into context is to look at the number of biologically productive acres per person on the Earth, or 4.7 (theoretically, everyone on Earth needs to have an equal, 4.7 acre print in order to live sustainably). However, this is not the case, especially in the United States; if everyone lived like the average American, we would need 5.1 planets to sustain us!!!
I wanted to calculate my footprint to see how I measure up. I am a college student without a car, living on-campus, and I consider myself to be an environmentally conscious person. When I calculated my ecological footprint using Jim Merkel’s method from Radical Simplicity, I was shocked and appalled to find my monthly footprint was a whopping 38.35 acres!!! This is impossible, I thought, and I returned to meticulously check my math. Alas, after many re-calculations, I found that my initial number was correct—my ecological footprint is 38.35 acres. This means that if everyone lived with my 38.35 acre footprint, we would need 8.61 planet earths to support our lifestyles. However, looking through my charts, I did find the source of the skewed acreage: my tuition cost. UCLA’s $29,000 yearly bill is ridiculous. I figured that out of my total yearly cost of attendance (including meals, housing, and tuition), about $15,000 is for education, meaning about $1,666.67 per month. The average American (according to Merkel) pays about $20.00 per month for education; therefore, I pay about 83 times more per month for education than the average American. Another possible source of error arose from my residence hall living space—mine was approximately 30,000 square yards of “total lot size including building”, when the average American’s was 647. These two data points, education and total lot size, were extremely far from the American average, thus skewing my data. I wanted a more accurate representation of my footprint, so I re-calculated my total footprint substituting in the average American values for education and total lot size. This footprint, what I consider to be more precise, is 12.48 acres. This print is about half that of an average American. One of the main reasons for my small print is found in the transportation sector and the fact that I do not have a car. As a full time student with no job, I have no need for a car, and infrequently ride in others’ vehicles. Also, I do not smoke and am usually healthy (no need for medicine); these sectors are large contributors to footprint acreage. Even though my footprint is much smaller than average, it is still twice as much as the 6-acre print that Merkel advocates. There are many areas in which I can strive to reduce my ecological footprint and this can be accomplished by setting goals.
The ultimate goal is to reduce my footprint to 6 acres, requiring many lifestyle changes and incremental goals. One of my short term goals (to be accomplished by the end of this quarter) is that I will produce less trash, meaning that I need to consume less. Simple things such as using re-fillable drinking ware or re-using printer paper as scratch paper can help reduce my footprint. This quarter, I will also specifically focus on using less paper towels and napkins, reducing the amount of paper products that I throw away. One of my medium goals (in my time here at UCLA) is to spread the word about sustainability. I need to educate others about reducing their footprints to preserve the environment and leave a habitable Earth for future generations. My long term goals focus on my life in the future, like someday when I own a house. If I have children, I plan on having only one child, and possibly adopting more—we must also focus on stabilizing the population. I also want to buy the majority of my food at local farmers markets and work near my home. Ultimately, I hope to be in the state of “unconscious sustainability” and educate others about my way of life.