After taking the Footprint calculator my footprint said that if everyone lived like I do it would take 3.9 planets to sustain us. It appears the most of my footprint is created through my use of electricity (although I think my children make a much bigger impression in my footprint than I do, I am ALWAYS shutting off lights and fans after them). I will have to tell them about this footprint, although I have used saving the environment as a motivator without success but this may be a visual for them to understand the impact, in addition to this I could put up a clothesline, which I have considered for a long time to save the energy needed to use the dryer. Second, to my surprise was food. I understand that packaging makes a lot of waste but 17.8 tons of CO2, whoa!!!! I buy products that have less packaging (for instance cereal in bags, large bags of cat food, large bottle of laundry soap, etc.) but if I were to buy more non packaged foods it would be helpful in reducing that number. I didn't give thought to the land it takes to raise the crops and animals that I eat, 17.7 global acres needed to produce them-I don't even really like meats, but It appears that crops are the bigger issue in my overuse of this service. Using the bus instead of driving saves quite a bit on the environment, and is my smallest piece of the pie.
If everyone lived in a manner that it would take 4.6 earths to support us, the population on the earth would need to be divided by almost 5 to determine the number of people the earth could sustain at this rate. If there are seven billion people on earth the earth could sustain 1,400,000,000.
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