Ecological Footprint

“EF represents the amount of per capita biologically productive land and sea area necessary to supply the resources a human population consumes, and to assimilate associated waste”. (Wikipedia) Using this assessment, it is possible to estimate how much of the Earth (or how many planet Earths) it would take to support humanity if everybody followed a given lifestyle. An it is estimated at 1.5 planet Earths

Ecological Footprint measures how much land and water area a human population requires to produce the resources it consumes and to absorb its wastes under prevailing technology EF measures the extent to which humanity is using nature's resources faster than they can regenerate

Ecological Overshoot When humanity's ecological resource demands exceed what nature can supply, we reach ecological overshoot The effects: collapsing fisheries, carbon-induced climate change, species extinction, deforestation, and the loss of groundwater The human footprint has more than tripled since 1960

Humanity's Footprint 1961-2003 How many Earths were needed to meet the resource requirements of humanity for each year? Ratio between resource demand & Biocapacity Demand = population times per capita consumption Biocapacity = 1planet

World Ecological Footprint

Ecological Footprint The amount of productive land and water a given population requires to produce all the resources they consume and take in all the waste they make using prevailing technology. From a school perspective - EF = The space required to support all the inputs and outputs of the school body. -- Based on premise that we live in a finite world. The earth has limited resources and limited waste assimilation capacity.

Components of the Ecological Footprint (six human activities that require space) Growing Crops Grazing Animals Harvesting Timber Catching Fish Accommodating Infrastructure (housing, transportation systems, industry, built up land…) Absorbing Carbon Dioxide Emissions (burning fossil fuels)

Ecological Footprints The amount of ecologically productive land used by individuals, cities, countries, etc. Production and use of goods and services involve land use: have ecological footprints

National Footprints Holland population 15 million Density = 4.4 People per Hectare Consumption is less than in U.S. Still, Dutch people require 15x more land than is within their country for Food Forest Products Energy Use Therefore, the ecosystems that support Holland lie far beyond their national borders

National Footprints In U.S. each person uses about 4.5 hectares/person Worldwide average = 1.5 hectares/person Therefore if everybody were to adopt the U.S. consumptive style, we would need 3 planets

If everyone in the world lived as we do in the United States, we would need over 7½ planets to live sustainably