My Human Footprint

A Human Footprint is the ecological impact of a humans life on Earth.

It can be determined by taking online tests, examples of the questions they ask are "How much electricity do you use per month?" and "How much of the food you eat is processed?".

I took the test at http://www.earthday.org/footprint-calculator . It determined that my ecological foot print was 7.1 Global hectares. A Global hectare is a measurnment of biocapacity of the entire earth. The average person in Calgary is 8.6, the average person in canada is 5.8 . 

I think the reason my footprint is so big is because I rarely walk to places and I usually get a ride. I also use a lot of electricity while watching television or charging my iPod, because we are so far north, the amout of energy we use to heat our houses is higher because the tempurature is so cold. The cost to transport fresh fruit and vegtables is higher because we cant grow them here in the winter time.


I could use less electricity and walk more places or ride my bike to reduce my human footprint. Also I could reduce the amount of waste I produce and recycle.

 My goal is to reduce my ecological footprint. I intend to do this by riding my bike to school when it warms up. I can walk to school now. I will always turn off the lights after my self to save electricity and I will have shorter showers thus reducing the energy I use.