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What is your ecological footprint?

Submitted by Mark Van Steenwyk on July 25, 2005 – 7:01 pmView Comments
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Ever wonder just how much food and energy you consume? Check out this quiz here. I’d be curious to hear your results.  Apparently, my footprint is 13 acres.  That means that if everyone lived the way I live, we’d need almost 3 planets to sustain life.  The average American’s footprint is 24 acres.  The earth only has 4.5 biologically productive acres per person.

I know I can lower my number by driving less, eating less meat (especially beef), and buying more local grown, unpackaged, unprocessed foods. 

The current things I have going for me is that 6 people live in my home, I don’t generally drive very much, and I tend to avoid processed foods.

However, as a Minnesotan, I will consume more than others, since we require heating for a large potion of the year. 

What did you score?

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About Mark Van Steenwyk

Mark Van Steenwyk is a member of Missio Dei. He is a speaker, writer, educator, and grassroots organizer. With the support of the Central Plains Mennonite Conference, he travels to radical and intentional communities around the country to help network and offer support.

  • lol...apparently most of us here are raping several planets.
  • JustinG
    I got a . . . oh wait I did not take the quiz . . . I did not need another means of feeling guilty as an American for raping the planet!
  • I got a 9. But still that is two planets. I think the quiz should also account for how much one eats, paper use, water use, clothing and furniture preferences, entertainment preferences.
  • jellens
    i got a whopping 19. no excuses here except that i live with VanS so he drives my footprint up. actually i am just a gigantic consumer.
  • I got a shameful 17. I'm not entirely sure how Chris got a whole 7 points lower than I did since we're both vegitarians. Only having 2 people in my house right now raised my score, though. I fly less than once a year, so that helped, and taking the bus to work (and lately to school) helped my score too.

    If I lived in Mark or Chris' neighborhood, I'd be able to walk to a lot more stores (i.e. the liquor store, the grocery store, the bar, the coffee shop, target, basically anywhere I wanted to spend money) and that would help, but instead I live in the "inner-city" and yet have some of the disadvantages of the suburbs. For instance, the closest coffee shop to my house is eleven blocks away and technically two neighborhoods away. The closest liquor store is eleven blocks (the other way) but there are two convenience stores five blocks away.

    If bikes weren't so expensive, and if I weren't so worried about it getting stolen, I'd get one.
  • There has to be someone worse than me!
  • I got a 19, but it is mostly because only 2 people live in my house. (oh and the fact that I pour buckets of mercury and arsenic into the mississippi every morning).
  • 19 for me, but I am raising an enviormental lobbiest.
  • I got a 16...not bad but not great either. I could trim some points if I were a vegetarian but I hate vegetables so that would mean being very hungry most of the time.
  • Joe, you are murdering my Mother Earth!

    I think the quiz is helpful, but it is hardly exact. Most of the things that really consume resources are built into the fabric of our lives--travel and electricity.
  • I am a terrible 27! I fly for work 50,000+ miles per year so that puts my score up. But my wife and I are working on being more efficient and carpooling more to work. JVD
  • I got a 10, mostly because I'm a delivery driver and that jacked up the amount of time I drive alone and the amount of time I spend driving each week. Without my job, I would have scored a 7. As a vegetarian, I shaved 2 full points off my score. Still you would need an extra planet for everyone to live like me. Pretty convicting.
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