Today I went to the website www.footprintnetwork.org/calculator, so I could learn how big my ecological footprint is. What this website does is tell me how many earths would it take to support the entire population of the earth if everyone on earth live the same way I did. I learned that if everyone live as I do it would take 4.4 earths. I must say that I was a little surprised. I know this sounds awful but I thought it would be more. I believe the average of the United States is 7.5 (according to the same website), so I thought I would be around that number. I guess because I work at school and only live 5 miles away that it helped keep my number down. I also don't buy a lot of new house hold goods. I deal with lot of second hand goods. That being said, I did score 4.4 earths; there is a lot of room for improvement. According to my pie chart a majority of my footprint comes from the services I use with food coming in a close second. It was suggested that I eat about half the meat I currently do. Reduce the post consumer waste. Consider installing solar panels. Buy energy efficient appliances. Lastly to take public transportation once a week.

Of all these things taking public transportation once a week sounds like the easiest, but living only 5 miles away would cause the impact on my footprint to be low. The suggestion for solar panels is something I would love to do. The idea of living "off the grid" sounds vary appealing to me and would probably have a huge impact. The first thing that they suggested is also something to consider, but I don't know about cutting the animal products in half. How about I start by cutting them by a quarter.