Updated Ecological footprint

So, we are halfway in the quarter and with these steps for reducing my ecological footprint and I was surprised to learn that I reduced my footprint over a half an earth. From 4.47 earths to 3.89 earths! But there is still a lot of work ahead to do! Looking back at the last couple weeks and making some worthy observations has helped realized that I made some improvements. For instance, I live in a house that was built in the 1920's and it has no insulation whatsoever. You might think this will increase my footprint in terms of housing footprint. However I have realized that trying to heat a house that can't keep heat in can be very costly for a college student. So I have dealt with not turning the furnace on and dressing warm when around the house. It hasn't been that cold yet either! Also we started using our wood furnace to heat the house which makes a huge difference! Something that also changed is my recycling habits though I am not perfect, I recycle more and call my roommates out on it much more to do it.

As for eating meat once a week or none at all has been hard because eating meat is such a subconscious habit. But I have noticed something with my eating habits and food consumption that I noted in the recalculated footprint is that I probably only eat one big meal a day with light snacks throughout the day like bananas, apples, trail mix and Cliff Bars. This has helped in reducing my footprint.


If everyone on the planet lived my lifestyle, we would need:

= 3.89 Earths




So I am going to keep my original goals that I made at the beginning of the quarter because it is something that I need to be reminded of and maintain those habits

A new goal that I am going to emphasize more is monitoring and reducing my water consumption while I am washing dishes because I have noticed that I keep the water running while I am doing the actual scrubbing which doesn't really make sense because I am not using it. Something that I am going to work on for the rest of the quarter.


Here is a link to my updated results!