Just over a week we heard the good news that renewable energy will be truly implemented in Europe starting this year and the U.S. say they are concerned to act responsibly with the environment under the presidency of Barack Obama.
Since this is a season of resolutions, plans for the future and decision-making would be good if we all applied it in our day-to-day some of the possibilities we have to reduce our environmental impact.
Our Footprint
The human being, although it is increasingly recognized as a separate and independent of the natural world turns out to be completely dependent on the existence of a diverse fauna and flora and other natural resources to survive. Frankly, if all individuals living with the same system of an individual of an industrialized society would hardly be less than one Earth to live.
Underlying this statement is the concept of ecological footprint. The footprint is a calculation that may be simpler or more complex but the result shows the area of productive land needed to sustain our lifestyle. In accounting enter our spending habits, recycling, consumption varied, travel, natural resources we use, those who destroy and those who revaluation. The calculation can be applied to all: one can calculate the ecological footprint of a country, a factory, a product of a cow or, more importantly, ours.
The view of the impact of our existence in this way early in a simple and effective for the depletion of natural resources.
The impact on numbers
Given that the Earth has a surface area of 51 billion hectares, of which 36.3 billion is sea and land are 14.7 billion, data from studies in 1996 are alarming:
* Dividing equally the production area by 5.7 billion people each person would have available 2.2 hectares for their consumption needs and assimilation of their waste;
* In the same year the per capita ecological footprint was 2.85 hectares (not considering the area needed for other species);
* The human race consumes 30% of the area of biologically productive nature;
* 25% of the world (industrialized regions) consumes about 75% of the total resources available;
* 5 countries with the largest ecological footprint were: United States (10.3 ha / capita), Australia (9 ha / capita), Canada (7.7 ha / capita), New Zealand (7.6 ha / capita ) and Iceland (7.4 ha / capita);
* Most of these countries are unable to meet its domestic needs, thus presenting an ecological deficit;
According to projections of world population (nine billion by 2100 [1]) and to accelerating ecological change runs the risk of “footprint” of humanity crush the Earth that sustains it.
We, as concerned citizens, we must act within our realm of possibility to prevent this from happening.
Tags: area, Australia, barack obama, Canada, capita, depletion of natural resources, ecological footprint, Europe, fauna and flora, Footprint, Iceland, impact, Knowledge, New Zealand, productive land, U.S., United States, world
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