It’s been more than 40 years since the first Earth Day, and our country has seen the creation of many great eco-friendly policies and organizations since then, including the Environmental Protection Agency, the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act. The number of rivers, lakes and estuaries deemed safe for fishing and swimming has doubled in the last two decades. Smog levels are down about 20 percent, with tailpipe emissions being 98 percent cleaner since the first Earth Day. A combined 1,400 animal and plant species are now protected on the threatened or endangered list. Clearly, our eco-awareness is on the rise and has resulted in various tangible benefits, but we are far from truly sustainable living.
The term carbon footprint has been thrown around for decades — many of us feel the guilt as we head to our cars to complete mundane activities instead of walking or riding our bikes — but our existence extends well beyond our CO2 emissions. Our overall impact on the planet is known as our ecological footprint, a term coined in the 1990s, which measures how fast we consume resources and generate waste compared to how fast nature can absorb our waste and generate new resources. Our ecological footprint is made up of everything it takes to maintain our current lifestyle, including agricultural fields, grain and pasture land, mines, oil wells, forests, landfills, toxic waste dumps, factories, freeways, etc.
According to various organizations that track our ecological footprint, the planet is in trouble. On a global scale, it takes the earth a year and half to regenerate what we use in a year. On a national level, however, Americans tip the scales of overconsumption and waste production. If everyone on the planet lived the way Americans do, it would take five earths in order for every inhabitant to sustain the American lifestyle, with the average American’s ecological footprint being twice that of the average European, four times that of the average Mexican, and 12 times that of an Indian. Within a couple of decades, moderate scenarios presented by the United Nations suggest that if current population and consumption trends continue, we will need the equivalent of two earths to sustain us.
The future of our planet is dire. We gloss over its importance as we are sucked into mind-numbing entertainment on television and online and ignore our impact on the planet for convenience and cost-effectiveness. But that isn’t sustainable, literally. In this week’s edition of the Reporter, our writers delve into the many ways we can change our lifestyles to lessen our ecological footprint and thereby make our planet a better place to be for future generations.
Making small changes can make huge differences, from recycling waste to installing fluorescent light bulbs. Or big investments can have major long-term effects, from electric cars to solar panels. It takes one person to start a movement, and one movement can change the world. Whatever the case may be, whatever you can do, just do it.
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