Free Essay On A Reflection Of The Way I Live

When I saw the results of the footprint test that I took, It was surprising and disappointing to learn that I was consuming too much of the resources in this earth. My score says that I need 6.2 planet earths if everyone in the world consumes the way I do. I felt sad about this because I thought I am on of the reasons why tour nature is degrading. My test results also show that I am using too much energy for electricity and that I am emitting 31.2 tons of carbon dioxide, which is the primary cause of global warming. My ecological footprint breakdown shows high scores in food, services, and shelter.
In order to address the concerns above, I plan to car-pool more often. This way my use of fuel is more efficient. I will also eat less of processed foods. This way, my ecological footprint for services will be reduced. When it comes to food, I am planning to eat more vegetables and fruits that are organically grown. I understand that fruits and vegetables that are not organically grown use fertilizers and pesticides. These fertilizers and pesticides take huge amount of energy to produce. They also degrade the quality of the soil, and cause air, and water pollution when they leach into the water system. Note that I also made an exploration of the possible scenarios for reducing my footprint. When I clicked the scenario that I will reduce my consumption of products or goods that use less packaging, I reduced one earth score. My earth score also decreased when I clicked on cutting my meet consumption to half. I am planning to do these scenarios in my life.
In the future I also plan to educate my posterity. I understand how creeping amnesia could easily destroy the efforts of the present generation. If my posterity will forget the importance of living in accordance with what this earth could only provide, then greater destruction of nature will be more likely. Being mindful of the environment must become a culture, especially among Americans, who are the most abusive of nature in this world, because we consume too much of the natural resources. For example, each people in this world should only consume less than 1.5 gallons of fuel every day in order for the fuel oil production to sustain the energy needs of all the people in the earth. Americans, however, consume 8 gallons of fuel oil everyday by the average. Therefore, I need to teach my children. I need to make sure that they get the best education that they can have so that they can also contribute in saving our planet. I order to do this; I am planning to do family planning when to my own family in the future. Family planning will help make sure that I will have enough resources to send my kids to school for their education. I am also planning to encourage my posterity to settle on urban places to avoid urban disconnect. This will make sure that land use is much efficient than today. I also plan to share my knowledge which I gained from this course and from the footprint exam. I will encourage my peers to take the exam. I understand that an individual effort can only do so little. What we need in this world is concerted effort by all of its stakeholders. Therefore, I will convince the people I meet to reduce their earth scores. Although this is only a small effort for, I believe that it can bring about miracles – we can be at one with Mother Nature again; we can be good again!
Appendix 1: Summary of Footprint Test