Week Three Questions & Response

1. Do we all have the same sized eco-footprint?
Not everyone has the same sized ecological footprint, because everyone lives in a different way. There are heaps of reasons why some people have large eco-footprints, some people live with huge eco-footprints because of their job, flying and driving around a heap, some people aren’t aware, some people don’t care, some people can’t see themselves changing for a better environment, but some people live like hippies or are just well aware of the consequences.
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2. What have you found out relating to how Ecological Footprints differ?
I’ve found out about how every day things, like meat products greatly affect the size of someone’s eco-footprint. If someone is a vegetarian or a vegan, their eco-footprint would angrily be much lower than someone who eats meat on a regular basis. Things like how often you buy new clothes, house hold items and appliances greatly affect someone’s eco-footprint, so if someone hasn’t got enough money, or doesn’t find it necessary to buy these things very often, their eco-footprint would be smaller than others. The smallest things can help with someone’s ecological footprint, without anyone even noticing, like recycling a bit more often, or using air-cons & heaters less. So, if a vegan were to buy second-hand goods & clothes, not own heaters or air conditioners, and recycle everything, they would be a hippy. (and they would have a very small ecological footprint)
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3. What affects the size of the Ecological Footprint?
I covered pretty much covered that while answering question 2. But, here’s a small list.
Meat & animal products (eggs, milk etc.)
Processed, packaged or imported food
Amount of waste generated
Materials used in your house
Electricity/energy consumed
Renewable electricity
Use of public transport
Use of cars
Use of motorbikes
Use of aeroplanes
All of these things make differences to your ecological footprint
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What are some practical things we as individuals, groups, businesses, and countries all do to reduce our Ecological Footprint?
As individuals, people can try to eat less animals & animal products, drive less, use less electricity and water and try to use renewable resources (renewable electricity, recyclables, etc.) to make a good start for a sustainable future. As groups, we can travel together, widen awareness for the matter, mass recycle & help others to do so. All these ideas can also be a very good help for the world. Businesses can mainly rely more on using less recourses, and countries can make a push towards using less, recycling more, using solar, wind & maybe water power. If all of these things could be done, we would be well on our way to being able to sustain the world.
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Total words: 399

An Inconvenient Response

Section 1: Personal Impact

For me, An Inconvenient Truth was a bit of an eye-opener. I already saw global warming as a fact and as a problem, but Al Gore’s extensive work shows that it is much, much more. The most memorable parts include the clip from Futurama, explaining what global warming is, and the first graph he put up, that showed natural warming for thousands and thousands of years, going up and down slowly and steadily, and then the past 50 years. It came as quite a shock, and it should help him get the message across nicely. Also, the fact that giant masses of ice can be destroyed as quickly as he told us, and the affect that it has on us is very scary. A lot of the solutions that Al told us about do seem very difficult to put to work, as using extensive amounts of resources is just what we do, every day. I think we can dramatically slow the warming down, but, at the moment, it doesn’t look like we can help ourselves very much now.

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Section 2: Deepening the Learning

Mainly, what I learned from An Inconvenient Truth was how quickly this is happening. Huge masses of ice can be destroyed in a matter of weeks, and the atmosphere is getting destroyed at an alarming rate. This film has given me enough evidence that it is all real, because temperatures are higher than ever, at the same time as the carbon emissions are skyrocketing, because of all of the human habits, like burning coal and oil, and using very large amounts of energy. I would like to hear some more proper scientists going public about the matter, but I am sold because it is such a widely believed thing, and there is just so much evidence to back it all up. I, like a lot of other people don’t pay too much attention to everything, like the small details and I just believe convincing looking graphs. Of course, some people who are looking at global warming in many different ways, and have been for a very long time would be the right people to trust.

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Section 3: Moral and Future Considerations

My personal values and morals already included some stuff about sustainability and environment, this movie has just confirmed it all in my mind. The movie has somewhat made global warming more of an issue and a value for me. The economic system largely relies on things that are bad for the environment. In Australia, if something were to go wrong with the mining system, the economy would suffer greatly. In order for the economic system to work, we need to keep these things up, unless we stop relying on mining and oil so much. There are some roadblocks in making change to save us from too much global warming. The whole world relies on things that are bad for the environment. There would be millions of jobs lost, and an unimaginable amount of money lost if we were to stop all environmentally unfriendly activity, not to mention people being completely lost and not knowing how to live anymore. Our style of life relies on things that are destroying the world. If everyone were to be completely honest, they would say that they could live without some of the ridiculous things, or do small things like consuming less, but as I have said, we rely too much on these things and would be completely lost without them. If we want to make a difference, the leaders for our counties should all see this film, and so should people deeply involved in things that are bad for the earth, like mining executives. Of course, lots of people should see this, but everyone that does watch An Inconvenient Truth should make sure they understand everything said, otherwise, it could be interpreted wrongly or wasted. If this could happen, there would be much more awareness of the problem, and we would be much closer to a solution.

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Total Words: 656

Sustainability in The Lorax

As we all know, before the Onceler came along, the home of The Lorax and his friends was a beautiful place, choc full of resources and strange, dancing bear things, singing birds and humming fish. When the Onceler was coming through in his horse drawn carriage, he saw the rare Truffla trees, which could be used to make his precious Thneeds – something everyone, EVERYONE, EVERYONE needs, so he decided to set up a shop containing these Thneeds. The problem with this was that the Onceler didn’t know about the art of sustainability. The Onceler was one of those people who thought that there was an endless amount of resources, so he just kept chopping down more and more truffle trees. Before too long, he built a factory with his extended Onceler family, and they started to pollute the environment. Soon, there weren’t enough trees to feed the strange, dancing bears, the factories smog smothered and choked the singing birds, and gunked up the humming fish’s ponds. This beautiful land was suddenly uninhabitable for its native and weird animals. All of this is still relevant today, because there are many, many different factories, logging sites and places that are destroying the environment. People are taking way more than the earth can produce, and in some parts of the world, the story of The Lorax is happening all over again. If the Onceler had known about sustainability, or could have another shot at his Thneed business, he would have to make some changes. First of all, he would have to limit the amount of Truffla trees being cut down, while constantly planting more, to keep a habitat for the native animals, and to be able to keep his business going. He would need to make much less, if any waste to keep the native fish alive and not mutated, and he would have had to burn less stuff, and make less smoke to not kill the singing birds. The main message behind the story of The Lorax is, that you need to be able to sustain a good living environment and keep resources alive, without using them all at once, while looking after the environment…..

Looks like SOMEONE should have listened to the Lorax.

That was the best 372 words that you will ever read.