What is your ecological footprint?

[Grog]

Even if they're important things to do, high-efficiency appliances, bulbs, etc., being careful with electricity and hot water, etc., having a high-efficiency car, etc. are marginal when compared to the ENORMOUS amount of resources we use by just living in big houses and apartments (compared to the rest of the world at least), heating them up (or cooling them down, or both), owning a car (even the most efficient ones have to be constructed, which requires a HUGE amount of energy and resources), eating food that comes from faraway, buying all that stuff (clothes, toys, electronics, furniture, and so much more) that we own (worst illustration of it might be the dollar store phenomena), etc.

The actual sacrifices we have to do if we want to live sustainably are MUCH bigger than the ones we make on a daily basis. It would indeed include, for example, foresaking family visits... or forsaking the reason why we live far from our family to begin with.

Clearly, we're not anywhere near that. However frugal I try to be (I'm down to 2.4 planets according to that web site), I still am extremely far from a sustainable lifestyle. It haunts me so much at times it prevents me from sleeping. This just can't work out. And I know that if only a significant portion of the population started living a simpler lifestyle tomorrow, then it would mean a catastrophy for the economy, and lots of people among the poorer in our societies would suffer from it.

I'm sorry I have no solution right now. I hope nobody gets discouraged from doing small things because of the size of their footprint, thinking nothing can be done about it. But I find it a good wake-up call that, hello, we'll have to be a little more serious about changing our lifestyle if we want positive changes to happen on this planet.

[Kitsune06]

The simple fact of the matter is that we are looking at this all wrong. There is a point where we must consider not whether we can sustain life, but what quality of life there will be for the survivors. We could all theoretically exist in closet-sized Japanese apartments, eating very small meals and moving very little to reduce caloric expenditure, etc etc and just keep having children etc etc who will grow up to live in smaller boxes and eating less...

There is going to be a point at which we realize it's not how sustainably we live, not how much we give up, not now conscious we are, but a matter of how *many* of us there are. A single locust does not eat much, but a swarm will desolate an entire valley.

If something were to happen (think Peak Oil etc) we would all be proper f*cked. Especially those of us in the cities. We have hardly got the means to produce enough food from our apartments. Millions would starve and die. ...that's nature's counterbalance. Like a cold winter, it will cull the excess of our population and those who do remain will have greater hope for the resources available. It's harsh, and it's tragic, but it's natural and the reverse swing of the pendulum.

It just p*sses me off and sickens me to occasionally see Hotmail or CNN headlines that say something like "Germany going extinct?" when population growth dips into the negatives for once. As if people need encouragement.