Today I took a quiz online called “Your Ecological Footprint”. The quiz asks you a series of questions about your lifestyle. At the end of the quiz, it estimates how your daily activities are affecting planet Earth. After completing the quiz, I was a little nervous to see my results. I am not by any means a litter bug, but I definitely know I could do a better part in sustaining the environment. My ecological footprint stated that if everyone lived like I did, we would need 4.2 Planet Earths to provide enough resources. Also, to support my lifestyle, it takes 18.5 global acres of the Earth’s productive area. I found these statistics to be shocking. It really made me think what I need to be doing to help save our planet.
The quiz gives simple options of what you can personally do to improve your ecological footprint. I found this section of the website to be really inventive. Most people know that they should recycle more, turn off the water and lights when they leave a room, or carpool more often, but the suggestions this site gave were very creative. For example, I am someone who loves to eat meat. It is not that I do not like fish, but given the choice I would usually pick a steak over salmon. The website does a “what if” scenario based off your ecological footprint results. For me, it noted, “What if you pledged to reduce the amount of animal products you eat by half?” If every American did this, we would use 645 million fewer global acres, an area that could cover 484 million football fields. I believe that seeing a statistic like this really makes you think about what you are doing each day. It also suggested that I start buying products made from recycled materials and plan a local vacation instead of traveling miles away. I especially liked this website because of the virtual interactivity, honest results, and the unique suggestions. I would recommend everyone take this quiz and honestly answer the questions, because the results and suggestions could positively affect our planet if they are put into action.
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