KENYA: 1b. Interactive Simulations.

Environment   Jul 28, 2017 by Aisha Maalim

As my peers stated, there is a dependence between bio-capacity and ecological footprint. One counts on the other, first we understand how, but to do that we should learn some definitions. What is bio-capacity? This is the ability of the land to regenerate the amount needed by the people who use it. What is ecological footprint? This is the impact of a given person on the environment measured by how much of the natural resources are used to sustain them. The problem arises when the earth cannot regenerate fast enough to catch up to the demand. On average Kenya’s ecological footprint 1.03 global hectares and has a bio capacity of 0.51, this being; when the land is not being used by other species who have the same needs as humans. This means we are already an ecological reserve.

These simulations are important in allowing us to completely understand these concepts as they factor in all the basic needs of a person living in this day and age, also allowing us to make the important distinction (to allow the factoring in of how the difference in lifestyle may affect our needs) between the housing areas as this affects the costs of maintenance (for example: electricity and gas), amount of food we consume, as well as the type of transport used in a particular home. This all can be affected gravelly by the governing or how things work in a community. Which would include the government, business and civil society. So keeping in mind, all these differences and aspects catered into the upbringing of the numbers within these simulations that give our ecological footprint, all feel completely relevant to our context.

The simulation’s accuracy further divided the earth’s productive area into energy land, cropland, grazing land, forest land, built up land and fishing ground. For most of ours, we got highest on the energy land, cropland, forest land and built up land which we must admit left us in awe thanks to this simulations.. Our largest use of the earth’s productive area was for food, shelter (electricity and such), goods and mobility. This is quite understandable as we live in urban areas. The use of energy sources would be more to cater to the need to charge laptops, phones,lamp lights and WiFi at odd hours of the day. However, we also realized that if more people lived like this 1.8 planets would be needed each year.

As the simulations also allowed us to change something in our lives in theoretical terms to be able to see the outcome; we noticed a few changes in the amount of energy used, such as electricity, gas. The use of public transport rather than cars, improved our ecological footprint to 2.8 hectares which of course reduced the amount of carbon dioxide released considering 70% of the cars have close to no catalytic converters. Apparently I was amazed of how little adjustments in actuality makes an immense difference. Even something as reducing the kilometers you ride in your car can change quite a bit. All this being said we thoroughly stick to our first thoughts in combating climate change. A unified stance. Even the smallest effort should not go unnoticed. The simple reuse, reduce and recycle. As well as extra effort to reduce the use of energy resources, mostly non-renewable ones such as gas.

In as much as we predominantly rely on this resources it is our obligation to look for clean alternative ways which will try factor in first our needs then our wants according to each and everyone's lifestyle which tickles their fancy.

Members; Maalim Aisha, Tina Kimberly

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