North America is increasingly using more and more resources, which results in outsourcing, increased pollution, and more. However, we are not at wits end; there are things we all can do, and have done as an entire continent to keep ourselves from over consumption. One example is removing disposable plastic utensils, and using paper
Luscious forests are being cut down for their valuable timber; oceans once plentiful with fish are being degraded into lifeless pools of water while toxic gases are polluting our air causing drastic climate changes. Therefore, my goal is to attempt to conserve Earth, our
Three ways that I am currently reducing my ecological footprint are unplugging things when they are no longer in use, turning off lights when not in the room, and energy efficient appliances. When I am not using the toaster, chargers, or the rice cooker, I will unplug them to avoid increasing the electricity we are using. If I am not in a room I will turn off the light to avoid wasting electricity. If I am in a room where the sunlight coming through the windows provides light we turn off the lights as well. In the house there are energy efficient appliances.
America- the land of opportunity, the land of the great. There hasn’t been a time when America hasn’t been great, however improvements are always underway for continued greatness. I can attest to a great America that exhibits qualities such as environmental prosperity, unlimited educational opportunities, and promoted health and wellness ventures. We must incorporate the best aspects of life into the American dream in order for the dream to fulfill the wants and needs of it pursuers.
On May 01st if everyone lived like me, 3 Earths would be required which means it would take 5.2 global hectares of productive land just to support me. Just looking at the results I expected it to be lower because of the lack of activities. My American footprint is below when it comes to earths, but over when it comes to the global hectares average. The five categories that contributed to my ecological footprint was food, shelter, service, goods, and mobility. Food was the highest contributor with a 1.4 gha and mobility had a 0.8 gha which was the lowest out of all the categories that contributed to my footprint.
Hannah Siegworth Professor Heather Swan English 153 1 March 2023 Personal Narrative: The Trouble with Wilderness The importance of a “pure” nature was introduced to me at a young age. Our family cabin in northern Wisconsin served as an abode in which we would go to “get away” from the hustle and bustle of the city. This mindset carried me through my childhood, and only when I read “The Trouble with Wilderness” did I begin to question and transform this viewpoint.
Volunteering on behalf of Habitat for Humanity was an eyeopening experience, as I was able to witness the positive changes I made. Habitat for Humanity strives to bring communities together, using volunteers to build homes for those in need. Upon discovering my local chapter of Habitat for Humanity, I instantly signed up for the next build and spent my entire Saturday helping a family in need. Hardly having nailed something before, I was suddenly tasked with building the frame and siding of somebody's future home. I took this responsibility seriously and spent the next 8 hours meticulously nailing away, making sure I made no mistakes.
Throughout my life I have come from and created a few identities for myself. Perhaps, the most dominant identities that have been apart of my life are being an athlete and being a family orientated man. In this paper I will write about how my identities have shaped my life. First off I believe my biggest identity is being an athlete.
As a person goes through life he or she may wonder “Who am I?” and “What is my purpose?” The objective of this paper is to allow me to reflect and critically analyze who I am as a person. In this paper, I will discuss my social location and identity, my life experiences and my privileges and disadvantages.
Other things such as gas I can not reduce since I don’t use it and only charged with a provider fee. I did go back to try and change the amount of recycling I do but the outcome was still 3.7 earths. After adjusting seeing how much I could reduce the amount of earths I got it down to 2.8 earths, but the adjustments to get it that low are very impractical. For a side-by-side comparison I compared the lowest I could get a US citizen and someone with the same lifestyle in South Africa. After trying to reduce the ecological footprint as much as possible it shows that living in the USA automatically puts you at a minimum of 2.8 earths while someone in South Africa of equal life got only one earth.
In the world now, man is accumulating resources in excess of their needs and beyond their own boundaries, competing with other organisms for resources. They are also converting these resources to form wastes. This leads to damaging the environment, where the carrying capacity of the environment is exceeding. According to World Wide Life Foundation, the planet’s total biocapacity is the earth’s ability to produce natural resources, provide land for humans to build on, and absorb waste such as carbon emissions. They argue that the human population uses resources in a year which normally takes a year and a half to generate.
1. Introduction: Carbon dioxide (CO2) is one of the important green house gases (GHGs) emitted in the atmosphere through various human and natural activities. The human activities include rapid industrialization and urbanization, deforestation, excessive use of fertilizers in agriculture, excessive use of fuels, papers and many other manmade resources whereas natural activities include volcano eruption, forest fires, earthquakes etc. Emission of GHGs in the atmosphere leads to global warming which is one of the primary reasons behind the atmospheric changes that affect the human life directly or indirectly. The consequences of global warming are extremely harsh seasons, untimely rains, extended summers and floods that results in human deaths, destruction of flora and fauna in addition to the huge economical losses.
As humans, we tend to not realize the impact we make on this planet in our day to day lives. Our “human footprint” is something we start creating since they day we are born, involving all the materials we use and consume throughout our lifetime. These items we sometimes forget about, such as diapers or random bread items such as hamburger buns. It is not just food item and materials; since I am an adult I have my driver’s license, so that would contribute to my own human footprint. We grow and change, as do our needs so are human footprint grows and changes along with us.
Following the industrial revolution, it took industrialized countries more than 200 years to establish a living standard under which an environmental movement could emerge. Furthermore, the gap worldwide between the rich and the poor is widening (OECD, 2015). As a reaction, the growing population from developing countries understandably demands equitable living conditions compared to citizens in Europe or the United States. However, establishing higher standards of living is opposed to concentrating efforts on reducing emissions. As a result there will be decades of ever-increasing GHGs globally, currently primarily caused by developed countries and by developing countries in the
