How heftyis your impactupon the earth? How eco are you really?
This is an excellent little test to calculate your ecological footprint, and it only takes about 3 minutes. If you don't know the population of your city etc, google for 'population of your town/city' and it should come straight up.
Have fun!
My ecological footprint was:
CATEGORY GLOBAL HECTARES
Food: 0.5
Mobility:0.1
Shelter: 0.4
Goods/services:0.3
Total footprint:1.3
IN COMPARISON, THE AVERAGE ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT IN YOUR COUNTRY IS 5.3 GLOBAL HECTARES PER PERSON.
WORLDWIDE, THERE EXIST 1.8 BIOLOGICALLY PRODUCTIVE GLOBAL HECTARES PER PERSON.
IF EVERYONE LIVED LIKE YOU, WE WOULD NEED 1.0 PLANETS.
[link= http://www.earthday.net/footprint ]http://www.earthday.net/footprint[/link]
RE: Calculate your ecological footprint!
hello azalia
sounds interesting (i've heard something about this before)
have you got the link (to save time searching....)
and well done for having such a low impact/carbon footprint!!!
love and energy efficient lightbulbs!
jess
RE: Calculate your ecological footprint!
Hi Jenny,
Apologies, I was doing a cut and paste job from the site and forgot the link! I've amended my original post.
RE: Calculate your ecological footprint!
it is interesting to see this post as I was only thinking about this as I was cooking my lentil and tomato soup
I got to wondering how lentils are grown..eg is there a lentil bush...then thought about how much fuel is used to get them to my kitchen etc, then thought of azalias recent commitment to veganism..and how we can follow a vegan lifestyle /diet, without doing some kind of damage due to use of food transported from miles away..and here is an answer without even having to post.
I have paid for some trees to offset my fuel use on a recent plane trip...and intend to become carbon neutral in more areas of my life
tigress
RE: Calculate your ecological footprint!
Hi Tigress,
As for lentils, they grow like this:
and here's a really good botanical drawing: 
There's info on how they grow here, at Wikipedia.
Obviously if you're cooking pulses from their raw form then you need to soak them, but I also do it for grains, too. I often soak a cup of pearl barley overnight and it's 'cooked' itself by lunchtime the next day! I see that as a great way of saving energy, though granted, it's not always convenient.
Asyouprobably noticedveganism is great for the planet...put in values for a meat eater and then see what the difference is when you do it as a vegan the next time round..it's quite a difference!
BTW, if anyone wants to find out more about the effects of diet on the planet, download the free environment booklet ('Eating the Earth') from here: [link= http://www.worldveganday.org/ ]http://www.worldveganday.org/[/link] It does take a little while but well worth the read.