Being brought up in a first world country has allowed me to have easy access to necessities. However with this, I actually consume a lot of different types of food per day and use a lot electricity thus leading to me having a large ecological footprint. A lot of the aspects that contribute to my large ecological footprint are things that I take for granted such as air conditioning, cars and meats. Using a website, I have calculated that if everyone on this planet lived like me, then we would consume all of the worlds resources by February 2018.
Some ways that I can reduce my ecological footprint would be to consume less meat based products, take shorter showers, use public transport, reduce usage of air conditioning and turn of plugs that I have finished using. Out of all of these goals, I can say that I have accomplished three of them (reduce usage of air conditioning, take shorter showers, use public transport). For me, I normally use fan’s during the day and I only turn the Air Conditioning on when I’m about to go to bed. I also try to take as little time as possible to shower (5-7 minutes). Finally, I take public transport is my most commonly used mode of transport, when I go out with friends or come home from school, I take the MRT or bus.
However, I do consume a lot of meat, especially beef and cows are one of the largest contributors to the ecological footprint. Cows require large amounts of land to eat, not only that but they release large amounts of methane which then contributes to a large carbon footprint. I should be more aware of the things that I eat. Finally, I need to try to reduce wastage of electricity as I sometimes leave plugs on overnight or charge my electronic devices overnight. This wastes a lot of electricity which then leads to more electricity that needs to be produced which then causes more carbon emissions thus leading to a huge impact on our planet.
Thanks for your post Dylan. I think you might want to pay attention to the precision in your language in the next post. You used the term “First world” which we have learned is problematic. You also explain overshoot day as “all the resources of the world are consumed” which is not quite correct either.
Well done for identifying a bunch of individual actions. What would you say to the person who argues that individual actions cannot make a difference?
Try reading Nishant’s post – which takes a pretty strong view against the value of individual action. Leave him a comment.