So, Americans are always being blamed for consuming more than we should. We package things in too much packaging, throw things away without bothering to recycle, and clearly eat too much (or at least, too much of the wrong thing). Are you better than the average American when it comes to how many resources you do use? How do you stack up compared to other ProU users? Well, now's your chance to find out.
From now until December 10th, we're giving you the chance to find out what your environmental footprint is. Simply go to www.myfootprint.org, and answer all the questions. Then come back to us, and tell us your results. After the end of the contest, we'll post the results (average, high and low) for ProU users. So you'll be able to see exactly how you stack up. We'll also give you some information that will help you reduce that footprint of yours, so stay tuned for that!
Plus, to make this extra special for everyone participating in the scholarship contest, we're going to give you 300 points, just for participating. Once again, just go fill out this form to get your points.
Edit: This bonus point opportunity is no longer available. You are still welcome to post your results here, but you will not receive points.
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I feel like a big doo-doo brain for hurting our Pretty Little Planet so much.
Thanks for making us feel like crap! lol. :)
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http://progressiveu.org/143541-how-to-survive-the-2008-elections
Seriously, I manage a near zero impact lifestyles, I don't own a car and get my veggies from the farmers market. I don't think that the survey allowed for enough variables.
Restoring Faith In Humanity One Acquaintance At A Time
Are you sure you answered everything correctly? I find it hard to believe that you need 3.7 acres for mobility if you don't own a car (and thus use public transportation, I assume).
~C
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I must have not clicked the miles traveled thing because acres for mobility dropped to 0.2 .But I'm still at 4.3 planets. I got 9.1 acres for shelter which has got to be way too high. I live in a big old flat with high ceilings on the bottom floor which stays cool enough in the summer to were I almost never use AC even in LA type weather.
Restoring Faith In Humanity One Acquaintance At A Time
I only got 1.8 planets.
I feel special.
great
3.5 Planets.
Is that a fat joke?!
Ha!
Us meat-eating environment-hating meanie-heads got less planets than the hippie Liberal!
Take that irony, world!
heh. I gladly clicked the "with every meal" option for meat.
but, I carpool to work, don't live alone, get good mileage..... I don't try to 'live green' . . . I just like to be efficient for the sake of saving money. heh.
Same here... I used my "footprint" from Potsdam, since I'm only living here for a couple months and I have no control over it here.
Except what saved me, I think, is pretty much knowing where all my food comes from. At home, I buy almost all my food directly from local farmers.
I feel so bad. I got 4 planets! Ahhhhh!! My confidence totally got shattered.
>_<
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http://www.mylot.com/?ref=truelife
at first I thought that people were using this page to communicate back and forth for some kind of underground game but now i see that it seems as though once again i missed the boat.
I have a conservative approach
Okay, how would it take so many more acres to get meat than vegetables? You can raise enough animals to have meat once a day on an acre or less- I know, my family has done it. If you grow your own vegetables- my family does- then you can grow enough food for a family of five on two acres, not the 4.9 the quiz gave me. The quiz doesn't calculate your land usage correctly.
By the way, how does riding in a car take up any land?
"A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take everything you have." - Barry Goldwater
"... the ostensible means [diversity] of acheiving a desired end had become the end itself." - Clarence Thomas
You are lying.
You cannot raise enough meat to feed a family every day on an acre of land or less. Not unless you are buying feed, in which case you are cheating and not considering the land where that feed was grown.
Riding in a car takes up land through energy consumption - consider the ethanol in your gasoline, the land required for oil refineries and pumps, and clean-up of all these processes.
You have to grow the food that the animals eat too, which uses more land. It's the simple energy pyramid... if you eat from the bottom, you get more energy out of every pound, but the more up the food chain you go, the less efficient the energy you get is.
Think about it... you can raise chickens in a fairly small area. But you have to buy feed for the chickens, or grow it yourself. That takes land. Probably at least twice as much as the amount of land it takes to raise the chickens. And then you have to rotate that every year so that you still can produce food from the ground.
Do you grow wheat? Grind it yourself? Make it into bread? That all takes land. Sure, you can probably make enough vegetables for the family of 5 for a year on two acres of land, but can you also raise the animals, grow the wheat (or other grains), etc, so that you can be completely self sufficient on that land? Highly unlikely.
Cars need fuel. Fuel comes from the earth, no matter which way you think about it. Cars also have to be made. In order to be made, you need some resources from the land, plus a factory on land. Then the car lots. And the land taken up by roads and parking lots and such. Especially if you need more resources to put concrete on those roads. All that requires land in some shape or form.
~C
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I use to live in Jamaica when I was younger and let me tell you I use to be a lot skinnier. However, as soon as I moved to America I shot up twenty pounds. But who's fault is this but my own. I'm not really one to portray myself as the victim, nor do I like others doing the same. Rather I blame it on greed. I believe that people who have more feel as though they can and for that matter will waste more. Simply because of the fact that they can afford it. In Jamaica my family was barely able to make ends meet however, once we moved to the U.S we didn't have to worry about making a single meal last for an entire week and were therefore told to consume it, and if we didn't we were told that we were being wasteful.
I don't understand what that has to do with my comment, except maybe that you were able to feed a family of 5 or whatever on a small tract of land because you rationed it heavily. But even that's a stretch...
~C
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I agree that this quiz definitely doesn't take enough things into account...for example, anything I do buy is used, I do a lot of dumpster diving, I ride my bike everywhere, I live in a house with five other adults, I hang my laundry up to dry, rather then using a drier, we keep our thermostat at about fifty degrees and still, according to this quiz, it would need 3.8 planets to sustain everyone in the world with a lifestyle like mine!
I know I could make myself more sustainable by buying at farmer's markets, raising my own chickens for eggs, dumpstering even more, taking fewer baths, etc...but sometimes the luxury of taking a hot bath or buying ice cream from Vermont (Cherry Garcia baby!,) is the only thing that will get me through my day! Should I just give up and off myself right now (now that would reduce my footprint?!)
This quiz and the resulting comments are all very interesting! Even if those who took the quiz scored worse than what they were hoping for, it at least is getting people to think about how they can be using energy and our planet more effeciently.
I guess I must live very simply because I scored only one planet! Yah! I suppose growing up in a third world country makes you very aware of all the resources you are using and being certain that they are put to the best use.
Bekka Joy
i feel so bad!!! i thought i did pretty well too!
Holy crap I got 2.9 planets! It's because of that damn processed food! We're poor and eat way too much macaroni and cheese, spaghettios, and Ramen, lol.
Times flies like the wind; fruit flies like a banana.