Environment & Resource Management Ecological Footprint Environment & Resource Management

Ecological Footprint Difference Between Wants & Needs Your Impact Reducing Our Footprint

If I Had a Million Dollars Look over the past twenty-four hours. Generalize what you did during that time. Include activities, eating, places you were… Describe what you needed in order to survive and complete these tasks. From this developed list of make a sub-list outlining which were needs of survival for you to live here in Ontario. From the original list make another sub-list outlining which were wants/extras that made life a more comfortable here in Ontario

YOUR Ecological Footprint Ecological Footprints are a measure of human impact on the Earth. The footprint equals the Earth’s cost to sustain one person. It’s measured in hectares and represents the land area needed to provide resources and absorb waste and greenhouse gases produced by an individual.

Ecological Footprint of Nations The map on the following slide shows various countries and regions of the world proportionate to their production and consumption of commercially traded fuels. All figures are in million metric tons of oil equivalent.

Ecological Footprint of Nations

Ecological Footprint of Nations World Average – 2.2 hectares Biggest Footprint – United States – 9.6 hectares Smallest Footprint – Bangladesh – 0.5 hectares Average Canadian Footprint – 8.6 hectares Canada has the 3rd highest footprint in the world! Why is Canada’s average footprint so big? What can we do to reduce our footprint?

Patterns of Consumption

Reducing Our Footprint In small groups (one for each category of the footprint calculator), create a poster that shows how we all could reduce the size of our footprint without reducing our standard of living. Transportation Water Use Clothing Recreation Food Garbage