Wissen

Your Ecological Footprint

Since the late 1970s, humanity has been in ecological overshoot with annual demand on resources exceeding what Earth can regenerate each year. In 2010 August 21st marks that unfortunate milestone: It´s this years Earth Overshoot Day, in which we exhaust our ecological budget for the rest of the year.

Once we pass this day, humanity will have demanded all the ecological services – from filtering CO2 to producing the raw materials for food – that nature can provide this year. From that point until the end of the year, we meet our ecological demand by liquidating resource stocks and accumulating carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
The most obvious and arguably pressing result is Climate Change – a result of producing more carbon than can be reabsorbed by the forests and seas. But there are others: shrinking forests, species loss, fisheries collapse and freshwater stress, just to name a few.

If everyone lived the lifestyle of the average American we would need five planets.

Today humanity uses the equivalent of 1.4 planets to provide the resources we use and absorb our waste. This means that it takes the Earth one year and five months to regenerate what we use in a year. The Living Planet Report 2008 shows that at the current rate humanity is using natural resources and producing waste, by the early 2030s we will require the resources of two planets to meet our needs.
A country’s footprint is the sum of all the cropland, grazing land, forest and fishing grounds required to produce the food, fibre and timber it consumes, to absorb the wastes emitted when it uses energy, and to provide space for its infrastructure. There have been differences in the methodology used by various ecological footprint studies. Since 2006, a first set of ecological footprint standards exist that detail both communication and calculation procedures. This standards are useful when comparing a countries, cities, regions footprint. The Living Planet Report 2008 names the top three countries with the highest ecological footprint per head:

United Arab Emirates (9.5 global hectares per person)
United States (9.4 gh)
Kuwait (8.9 gh)

According to a report released by Global Footprint Network and CII (Confederation of Indian Industry) India with it´s fast growing economy now demands two Indias to provide its resources and absorb its wastes.
Download India´s Ecological Footprint Report

footprintnetwork.org/ world footprint

The Ecological Footprint

The Ecological Footprint measures how much land and water area a human population requires to produce the resource it consumes and to absorb its wastes. All of the per person Footprint Calculators use different end-use categories such as food, shelter, mobility, goods and services, and some of them use land types (forest, cropland, energy, fish, grazing land).
By measuring the Footprint of a population, individual, city, business, nation, or all of humanity we can take personal and collective action to support a world where humanity lives within the Earth’s bounds. To reach this goal individuals and institutions worldwide must begin to recognize ecological limits, make them central to our decision-making and use human ingenuity to find new ways to live.
You can start by taking individual action - the Personal Footprint Calculators will help you to see where you stand and to find a starting point for changing your lifestyle.

Your Personal Footprint

footprintnetwork.org: How much land area does it take to support your lifestyle? Take this quiz to find out your Ecological Footprint, discover your biggest areas of resource consumption, and learn what you can do to tread more lightly on the earth. At the end of this quiz you´ll find graphs about your biggest areas of resource consumption, and learn what you can do live more sustainable. Although you choose your country the current version is based on data specifically for the U.S. and Australia, but Global Footprint Network is developing a new version which will enable people around the world to calculate their Footprints with data specific to their region.

myfootprint.org: After 27 easy questions you´ll be able to compare your Ecological Footprint to others´ and you can learn how to reduce your footprint. In this quiz you can choose your country and get some country-specific answers.

The Ecological Footprint does not, and is not intended to measure freshwater flows. Nevertheless this is a vital renewable resource to become aware of. Check your Water footprint.