24th April 2024
Ecological footprints are a measure of how much of the earth’s natural resources needed to sustain human life – ie how much clean water, clean air, soil for growing crops, oceans for fish, trees for timber, water/ wind/ fossil fuels etc for energy, land for buildings, etc needed for each human. This footprint will vary from person to person depending on their lifestyles – how much and what they consume, and how much and what sort of waste they produce.
The ecological footprint of someone who lives off the grid, growing their own food and recycling their waste, will have a smaller ecological footprint than someone who owns multiple homes, flies and drives a large SUV, eats a meat rich diet, and buys lots of clothes and other consumer goods.
Ecological footprints are also measured in terms of global hectares per capita (see yesterday’s blog).
Using information from https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/ecological-footprint-by-country,
USA – 8.04 gha
Australia – 7.77
Oman – 7.29
France – 4.6
UK – 4.20
China – 3.71
Brazil – 2.81
India – 1.19
Zimbabwe – 1.03
Democratic Republic of Congo – 0.01
You might like to use an online calculator to estimate your carbon footprint (these can be very rough and ready rather than precise but give a ballpark idea). These calculators are not just measuring your carbon footprint but your ecological footprint – how much of the earth’s resources your lifestyles uses.
https://www.footprintcalculator.org/home
The Green Tau 