Did you know that I can list 10 simple things that you do everyday that pollute the environment. Things that you have perhaps done thousands of times and never given it a thought. And maybe it was the same for me until I produced over 40 episodes about sustainability. But having done so, I have certainly learned a lot of things which has changed my views.
For example, the other day as I was holding a can of soup I had purchased from the supermarket, I was thinking about all the energy and resources that went into that simple can of soup. Then I asked myself a simple question.
Is there anything I can do that doesn’t affect the environment in some way? To find out that answer listen to this episode called Your Carbon Footprint Explained.
Welcome back every one to the Adventures in Sustainable Living podcast. This is your host Patrick and this is episode #47 called Your Carbon Footprint Explained.
Freelance writer James Truslow Adams popularized the phrase “American Dream” in his 1931 book Epic of America. And so the American dream is the belief that anyone, regardless of where they were born or what class they were born into, can attain their own version of success in a society in which upward mobility is possible for everyone.
And so America is so often viewed as the land of opportunity, at least in the hearts and minds of those outside the country. For example, the young Afghan dentist, Fada Mohammad, who fell to his death after clinging to the outside of a U.S military plane in Kabul. Another example, the almost 2 million Vietnamese who literally risked their lives to flee oppression after the U.S. left Vietnam in 1975. Or even the thousands of Central Americans who marched toward the U.S. border fleeing the crime and oppression in their own country.
It’s almost as if “They’ve all come to look for America,” as Simon and Garfunkel sang in 1968.
Several years ago I used to joke with my friends that what this country needed was a good pandemic to make us once again fully realize what was truly important in life. And now here we are still in the wake of a global pandemic and it seems as if people have become even more indignant, impatient, entitled, and sometimes completely out of control.
At first I thought it was just me being cynical about American society. So I asked people in other professions, coworkers, family members about their experiences working with the public. Their thoughts and comments were the same as mine. So here is my conclusion.
When you grow up in the land of opportunity, that becomes engrained in you as an expectation. When you spend your entire life having anything you want, any time you want, you begin to think that is what life is supposed to be like. In fact, you start to feel that is what you are entitled too. But when you get deprived of that lifestyle, as with the pandemic, you are deprived of your entitlement and that makes people angry.
In the end what I see is that people were not deprived long enough to make them appreciate what they actually have. So we go right back to our highly wasteful life styles never missing an opportunity to order something online. And we also never seem to pay attention to how our lifestyles affect the planet.
And in the land of opportunity, we have seen a 46% increase in our population since 1980. Similarly, the population of the world has increased by 43% since that time. And as our population continues to grow so does our demand for resources. And believe it or not, humanity’s consumption of resources is at a rate of 157% of what is actually available. So that means we need an Earth and a half in order to maintain our present rate of consumption. Well, we can’t really build another Earth. But maybe we can colonize Mars????
But to bring that down to a more personal level, the products that we choose, what we eat, how much we travel, how much electricity we use, as well as many other factors, determines how much we consume. And how much we consume is a measure of our ecological footprint.
But while this may seem a simple concept, it truly is much more complicated that you think. As with my can of soup, what I consume is not limited to that can of soup. I am also “consuming” so to speak, all the resources that went into producing the can as well as the labeling. No to mention all the resources that went into the vegetables and meat in the soup, as well as the energy and resources used to manufacture and transport that soup to the supermarket.
And you have likely heard me speak of this before. This is the concept of embodied energy. What that means is that when you utilize a product, or consume a product, your total ecological footprint is not only the product itself but also all the resources and energy that went into producing that product. For example, our everyday consumer goods and services produce greenhouse gases before, during, and after their useful lifestyle. Consequently, the ecological footprint of any product starts with obtaining raw materials. Then it continues through processing, production, distribution, and throughout that product’s useful lifespan, and then finally into that product’s transformation into waste that is either reused, recycled, or it goes to the landfill.
You can sort of think of your ecological footprint as being the big picture of your total impact on the environment. Your individual ecological footprint simply compares the total resources that people consume with the land and water area that is needed to replace those resources. In other words it is a comparison of the use of bio-productive space.
It is worth noting that the ecological footprint of the average person in the United States is 50% larger than the average person in most European countries. The U.S. has much more urban development, much less public transportation, and we use much more energy and water compared to other developed countries.
It is also useful to look at this from the perspective GDP, which is gross domestic product. The GDP for a particular economy or country is the measure of the market value of all goods and services produced by that country in a specific time period. If we compare the GDP of the U.S. to other countries, what is most notable is that U.S. ecological footprint is equal that of seven other countries when combined produce the same GDP.
Very simply put, you can use bio-productive space as a measure of our individual ecological footprint. All you do is look at all the goods and services that we utilize over a year. Then look at the amount of land and water use area that would be required to replace those resources. In other words, at your present rate of consumption of resources, if you lived on your own little homestead and you were required to provide all of your own resources and regenerate all of those resources on a year to year basis, how much land would you need?
According to the average consumption rate in the U.S. each of us would need 8.6 hectares, which is the equivalent of 21.2 acres of land, in order to produce all of our own resources. Now compared to the average person in Mexico, each person would need about 7 acres of land.
You know, just an aside here. I was working in a hospital in the mountains above Denver the other day with a technician named Christine. She has a small cabin and her family tries to be a sustainable as possible. She said to me the other day that all she wanted was a small piece of land where they could have a nice garden, some chickens, and produce as much of their own food as possible.
So, with that in mind, I decided to look up some statistics on the population distribution in the United States. Turns out that 83% of the people in the U.S. live in urban areas. That leaves a considerable amount of land out there to plant a garden and be as sustainable as possible.
Anyway, back on point here.
So what this does is give you an idea of our rate of consumption or our ecological footprint.
The other concept that I wanted to mention is that of our carbon footprint. While ecological footprint and carbon footprint both encompass the concepts of resource utilization, carbon footprint focuses more on the production of greenhouse gases. In other words, this is an understanding of the impact of a person’s behavior on global warming.
So, why are these concepts important?
It is so easy for each of us to sit back and ignore what we do not see everyday. Furthermore, unless we are presented with a crisis, we go about our daily lives as if nothing is wrong because we are much better at crisis management because there is an obvious and pressing need. Additionally, it is easy for us to throw up our hands and say this whole situation is hopeless because what can an individual actually do about global warming and climate change?
Fortunately, the answer to that question is yes!!
If you want to effectively contribute on an individual basis to help stop global warming, the first and most important step to not only measure but keep track of your personal ecological and carbon footprint. Once you have done that, the next vital step that you must take is to understand how you can reduce your impact on the environment whether that be through changes in your business, your home, or your lifestyle.
Now, there are a number of episodes I’ve produced that I can point you to. For example:
E5: 12 Steps to a Zero Waste Lifestyle
E14: The New Self Sufficiency: Doing Without
E18: Choices Make Changes
E 23: Waste Not, Want Not, Pollute Not
E38: The Value of Simplicity
But, I also want to give you a couple of tools to utilize. I found several things online that each of you can go to. There will be links in the transcript of the episode so that you can easily retrieve these. But, I also want to mention them here.
www.footprintcalculator.org
www.footprintnetwork.org
Nature Conservancy Calculator
And if you forget what these are or do not download the transcript, you can always search for carbon footprint calculator or ecological footprint calculator and easily find these tools.
I actually went through all of these and calculated by ecological footprint just to see what it would say. I based it on things I was doing several months ago. All of my results came back the same. The commuting that I do is my biggest ecological impact. But, I already knew that which is why I go creative a few months ago and have now reduced my commuting by 50%.
Basically these apps are going to tour through your lifestyle and ask you about your eating habits, energy usage, size of your home, driving habits, use of public transportation, use of renewable energy, travel, as well as some other things.
And to be honest, after going through three different footprint calculators, I do think it is a good place to start. But I also think they could be a lot more detailed. In the end, I think it is a good way to get you to thinking about things you could be doing.
So, back to my original question. Is there anything I can do that doesn’t affect the environment in some way?
But before I answer that question, please allow me to point out a few things, little things that we all do almost everyday, that has some affect on the environment. And these are things you can change.
- Leaving the water running while washing your hands, face, or brushing your teeth. The average American already uses over 100 gallons of fresh water daily. You can make a difference by changing this one habit and you could save as much as 1,400 liters of water per month.
- Drinking bottle water. If you have any doubt about this wasteful habit, listen to E10 A Bottle of Deception
- Throwing batteries in the trash. Batteries contain mercury, which is one of the most toxic metals in the world. It can take 500 to 1,000 year to break down. Just one battery can contaminate up to 3,000 liters of water. And by the way, I only use rechargeable batteries. Consequently, I’ve not purchased disposable batteries in years.
- Consuming products that contain palm oil. Although palm oil is not widely used in the U.S. as a cooking oil, it is widely used in breads, pastries, cereal, peanut butter, chocolate, and margarine. Palm oil production is enormously destructive to the environment because of where and how it is grown. Production is responsible for deforestation and enormous habitat loss.
- Use of aerosol products. Many aerosol sprays contain highly toxic chemicals including neurotoxins and carcinogens and are extremely hazardous for people and pets.
- Chewing gum. 80 to 90% of chewing gum is not disposed of properly. It is the second most common form of litter after cigarette butts. Chewing gum is made from synthetic polymers that do not degrade. It is harmful to wildlife that mistake it for food. It is responsible for 250,000 tons of trash yearly.
- Food waste. Certainly I have covered this topic extensively in other episodes.
- Using paper products. We use paper products almost everyday in one form or another. The problem is that paper is made from trees. You can change this by finding alternatives. For example, since I work in medical facilities, as you can imagine I wash my hands 50 times a day. I now carry a highly absorbent towel in my pocket and use that to dry my hands.
- Flushing the toilet. How many times a day do you flush the toilet? You use 5 to 7 gallons of fresh water every time you do that. This accounts for 30% of our water usage everyday.
- Driving your car. This is one of the major pollutants in the U.S. because of our lack of efficient public transportation and the fact that we all insist on owning a personal vehicle. I do know that my commuting is responsible for my greatest environmental impact. That is why I got creative a few months ago and reduced my driving my 50%.
And obviously there are a number of other things that we do everyday that affects the environment but this is just a quick list to get you thinking about everyday things we all do.
Summary
In summary folks, there are many, many people in the world that still look at America as being the land of opportunity. And perhaps it is one of the few places on planet Earth where anyone regardless of where they were born or what class they were born into, can attain their own version of success. And certainly I’ve seen many examples of this.
I would simply say this. Check your privilege.
One of my favorite authors is Simon Anholt. He wrote a book called “How We Can Repair the World in One Generation” and is the founder of a website goodcountry.org. He made a statement in one of his books, “Check your privilege.” What this simply means is that we all need to appreciate what we have, how we use it, and how we share with others meaning other nations.
Keep in mind that in our land of opportunity, our ecological footprint is 50% greater than any other person in the world. For example, the ecological footprint of the state of California alone is equal to that of the entire country of France.
That said, look at your daily habits. There are many simple things you can change that will have a tremendous positive impact and will reduce your ecological footprint. Every single thing that you do has some sort of impact: driving your car, charging your cell phone, washing your face, brushing your teeth, cleaning your house, the products you purchase, as well as hundreds of other daily activities that you take for granted.
My original question. Is there anything that I can do that does not affect the environment in some way? The answer is NO!!
It truly was not that long ago when we thought nature was indestructible. After all we see the powerful forces of nature everyday from hurricanes to volcanic eruptions and the planet always seems to recover. But in our present age we are faced with global warming, oceans choked with plastic, melting icecaps, rising sea levels, and river basins drying up. Plants and animals are becoming extinct a thousands times faster compared to the last 500 million years. And at least according to one study out of a university in Denmark, unless we change what we are doing, within a century the damage to the planet will be so extensive it will take 3 to 5 million years to recover.
Well, I don’t know about you, but that is much longer than I am willing to wait.
Benjamin Franklin once said, “Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve em and I learn.”
That is your challenge for this coming week. Get involved.
This is your host Patrick sighing off until next week. Always remember to live sustainably because this is how we build a better future.
Resources
Eight Things to Know About Palm Oil
The Dangers of Aerosol Products
Daily Humans Habits That Are Killing the Environment
California Has the Same Ecological Footprint as France
www.footprintcalculator.org
www.footprintnetwork.org
Nature Conservancy Calculator
