From ADLC: Interactive Simulator

Sep 27, 2016 by Eden Szoke

Ecological Footprint Calculator:

What causes the biggest portion of my ecological footprint was actually not all that surprising.

It is a massiveenergy sucker, it is an excessive heat loser, it is indeed the biggest part of my life: my house. Whatwassurprising was that, not only was it a big portion of my footprint, my home wasmore than halfof my pie chart. This should maybe be daunting, as my house usage alone could be the cause of a loss ofabout 2.5 Earths... when we only have one... But, I see it as something that is possible to fix. I plan one day to have a small, extremely sustainable, off-grid type home, but until then the house I have could be improved with solar panels, lower heat consumption, andgreener appliances.

The second biggest part of my graph was services. By this I assume it means gas, power, food transportation, and other carbon dioxide causing activities. Although I am often careful with the impact my food causes when its grown (I try to eat vegan and organic as much as possible) this simulation has made me contemplate more how much I don't buy local, or at least don't notice if I'm buying local or not - I buy way more packaged and transported foods than I could be proud of. This I also feel optimistic to improve. I once read of a woman who had changed her life and her consumption of products so completely that she produced 0% household waste. Although this is a bit of a stretch, I think I can incorporate some of her methods and by doing so reduce my use of services,by buying locally with reusable bags and containers, and growing more of my favorite foods at home (which I love to do, and often do, anyway!)

Overall my footprint was 9.1, .5 pointsbigger than the average Calgarian, and 2.3 points more than the average Albertan.

I think this relates to my community because many people in my town have relatively inefficient housing. Where I live, it is still considered something to be proud of to have a giant house. I find it to be a wasteful and outdated idea, and I believe in the concept of sustainable (and affordable)housing. I think it's something every community has the power to change and every person has the ability to be open to.

This stimulation has ultimately showed me that for some of the biggest change to be possible -it is important to focus on a local -and even a personal- goal.

Climate Challenge:

Apparently... My priorities were not appreciated among economists. Although I reduced carbon emissions as low as they could possible go, and won over all the countries in the global conference in the process, my "economy was in ruins" and my people were starving.

To first speak about the negotiations with other nations, I soon found out that it didn't matter how much you paid the other countries to change, the vote was decided by how much you were willing to lead by example. I guess it's a good generalmoral to first change things at home if you want anyone to believe in you and your methods, regardless of if you're a world leader or a high school student who is trying to advocate for change.

I disagreed that organic food hurt the environment and I was too much of a vegetarian to allow pig farms... thus the starvation. I didn't believe in taxing the middle class to give more money to the country, although this was the biggest economy booster, and this refusal to this type of option explains the economy in ruins. Something that frustrated me about this game was that it wasn't open-minded enough. The game was made to only work in the system we now know, where the environment, the economy, and the social systems are constantly in a balancing act -but somehow one that still has room to benefit a small number of ridiculously rich people. What this game failed to take into account were world changing options like taxing billionaires and corporations instead of the middle class or decreasing military spending. It also lackedany type of measurement of people's (and animals' for that matter) treatment,personal growth, or general contentment with their lives. These are things I would look at if I was actually leading a country.

I think this opened my eyes more to the gap in between what we think the problem is and what it actually is. I am convinced that there is more than enough wiggle room to improve a country outside the compromise implied by the game. It’s not just balancing the needs of the people, the economy, and the environment, but balancing the greed, morals, and responsibility within the leading species (humans).

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