Ooh 7.4 Earths sounds like a lot, but I think they are also making generalizations based on where you live (so you were labelled greedy American before you even answered any questions about consumption). For instance, there is only a single question about good and services and it is whether you produce more or less garbage than your neighbours. There's nothing about buying habits apart from food. Here in Toronto, the City picks up our compost and recyclables, separately from trash. Does that count as garbage? Shouldn't the type of public transit vehicle matter? I hate to think about the fuel burned by the 65 m long research vessel we use at sea! It's quite shocking really.
They acknowledge an urban bias. I have no idea whether I was better when I lived in a rural part of Vancouver Island, eating local produce and seafood, which I had to drive to get (and my neighbour with the prawn traps certainly wasn't using a sail boat to catch 'em). These things are very complex to calculate accurately, but still I think it's worth pointing out, because I know a number of people who might be very surprised at their result.
According to the quiz, I had a smaller ecological footprint in a rural area near a smaller city, in a much bigger home, which was less energy efficient, driving a car than I am in an apartment in a big city... but I think that's determined by climate. It's a hell of a lot colder here in the winter, so it takes much more energy for heating. I wonder if they assume I use air conditioning in the summer?
And A/C is a way of life here in Florida, but heating is much, much less. Heating, I would guess, would be more efficient just because of entropy, but we have some fairly efficient heat pumps for A/C, though.
It is interesting which cause bumps into other causes. Since organic food takes more time and space than factory-farming, I wonder if the ecological footprint would go down if one ate hormone-fed, stacked-and-caged chicken as opposed to farm-raised.
They acknowledge an urban bias. I have no idea whether I was better when I lived in a rural part of Vancouver Island, eating local produce and seafood, which I had to drive to get (and my neighbour with the prawn traps certainly wasn't using a sail boat to catch 'em). These things are very complex to calculate accurately, but still I think it's worth pointing out, because I know a number of people who might be very surprised at their result.
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It is interesting which cause bumps into other causes. Since organic food takes more time and space than factory-farming, I wonder if the ecological footprint would go down if one ate hormone-fed, stacked-and-caged chicken as opposed to farm-raised.
It is an interesting quiz, though.
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