For this Eye Opener exercise, I took an ecological footprint quiz. After the quiz was finished it estimated that if everyone lived the way I do, we would need 4.8 planets to support my lifestyle, and while I wont say I don't have excess in my life, I do think that the number is skewed high.
I answered the quiz to how I have lived in the last few weeks as opposed to my year round averages, and since it is the middle of winter, there is a lot less fruit/produce grown locally, as it is not so easy to do in northern Minnesota in the winter. But whenever it is available, I choose to buy local for several personal reasons, so I don't feel like that was well represented in this. I also think that the size of our home plays a large part of my score. My friends and I rent a large home and it costs a lot for heat/electricity, but I think that since I am 1 of four people maybe it should have 1/4th of the impact on this quiz? Maybe it already took that in to account. I think that played a large part of why my usage% of services is so high (41%). This report also showed that I take 21.4 global acres of the Earth's productive area, producing 21.5 tons of CO2.
Even with my rationalizing for some of the behavior listed above I know there is more I can do to help lower my usage rates. I will look to do more of the things around my house such as recycling/reusing products, and help offset the usage of my home by keeping the windows sealed in the winter and keeping lights off and minimizing use of appliances.
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