Blogs
Ecological Footprint:
What surprised me the most about my ecological footprint was that it was below my cities average by a lot. Edmonton's footprint is about 8.6 hectares, and the Canadian average 5.8, however mine was only 4.8 hectares. That is equivalent to 5.9 football fields.
Although I knew the stimulation is not completely accurate, it had me questioning why it was so low, considering that my family is quite large. When I tried it for a second time, I lowered the amount of locally grown products I buy on a regular basis, and changed the size of my home to see how it would affect my footprint. I noticed that this significantly increased my ecological footprint, which made sense--- a larger home meant more energy being used and the process of shipping items meant more carbon emissions.
It seems to be hard for me to try to make my footprint decrease, however I think that if were to buy even more locally grown products and reduce the amount of energy use in my household, my footprint can still be lowered. It's going to be challenging since I can't change some of the bigger factors such as the size of my family or home, but it is possible.
I feel that this activity is important for people to try as it only takes moments of time, however it teaches you a lot about how small elements in your life contribute to how you affect the environment. It also informs you on how you can improve your footprint which is important because it's the small steps that start to create change.
