BIG Footprints

I was shocked to read in Johnson's book that if people in the developing world were to take on the American lifestyle, the world would need the resources of five or six Earth's to maintain that level of consumption. I then went to this website to calculate what my total ecological footprint would be: YIKES! My results are shown below, and you can take a short quiz to find out about the size of your footprint, too.



My footprint shows that I use more resources than the average American, because if everyone in the world lived like me, 6.7 Earth's would be needed to provide enough resources. The results also broke down where most of my resource consumption comes from, which is food by a long shot, and then traveling. (I promise I carpool as much as possible!) The chart also states that 29.7 global acres of the Earth's productive area is used to support my lifestyle alone, and the last box in the bottom right corner lists ways to help reduce my footprint.

After computing my impact on using scarce resources, I feel terrible. I always thought I was doing the right things by recycling and turning off the water while brushing my teeth, but apparently I am damaging the world in more significant ways.

And not only am I doing my fair share of injustice, so are the corporations. I feel the topics we have discussed in global issues brings out the worst (but truth) about corproations. They look powerful to us in McComb's School of Business, but here they don't look so hot. Whether it's free trade or the environment, there are strong arguments for the disapproval of what actions big corporations are taking with little thought about the consequences on others.