Apr
22
Since today is Earth day CNN has been touting many different events and activities. One such activity that I found was from Earth Day Network. They have a Footprint Calculator where the user answers a series of questions about their lifestyle. At the end of the questions a score is calculated in the form of how many Earths would be needed if the rest of the world lived the same lifestyle as the user. After completing the calculator my score read 4.8 Earths. I was thinking to myself, “wow I am completely trashing the Earth!” Out of curiosity I wanted to see what it looks like to score just 1 Earth. After all that’s where I should be. Well after much tweaking of my answers the lowest score I could get was 2.4 Earths. Does this mean anything I do is dooming the Earth? I mean come on Earth Day Network give me some hope! This makes me wonder, is this just a tool to shame people into being more Earth friendly?
Did anyone else try their hand at this calculator and get a score better then 2.4 Earths?
I scored 3.6 Earths and then changed my answers to my ideals and scored around the same. Recycling does not make a difference. Eating no meat is the same as eating some meat.
Then I changed my answers to an environmentalists’ ideal and scored 2.4 Earths. It is impossible to score less. However, not everyone DOES live like me. I can’t control people who are less environmentally conscious than I AND there are about a dozen people living in a hut somewhere to make up for it.
Just sayin’ this calculator is kind of useless.
Maybe we should start discouraging third world countries from developing so that everything evens out.
Oh, I do like that recycling did not make a difference. So I guess the small things don’t really matter
.
Stupid calculator.