Eye Opener: My Ecological Footprint

The first quiz I took for was calculating my Ecological Footprint. I really liked taking this quiz, on a side note besides the great information it was giving me, due to the little person I got to create....she had black spiky hair, green pants, and an orange t-shirt haha!! That was kinda cool :) Ok, down to business. I found out it would take 3.3 earths to provide enough resources if everyone lived like me. That makes me feel so bad!! Our poor planet, and each day it gets worse, I feel like a bully. When broken down, the area that is biggest for me is 'services'. Also astonishing, it takes 14.5 global acres of the Earth's productive area to support my lifestyle. I then looked more into ways I can positively change my habits to help the world around me, and how to lessen my Ecological Footprint. Check this site out for more: earthdaynetwork
The second quiz I took was The Travel Calculator. I feel this one was a bit skewerd, because in the winter I tend to drive each day. But in the summer, I rarely use a car, I walk and bike most everywhere everyday. So I think that one was a little harder to be really accurate. But it was still good to see. According this test, I am worse than average..and yes they put those fabulous words in red which seemed to make it sting that much more! I live just outside of the cities, so to go home it kind of a trek, which is a big part of why my answers turned out the way they did. A good thing is that I dont have to ever fly to get to my family, or anywhere for that matter. Guess its a plus to being so broke you cant afford a vacation :) So I looked at the tips they had on this site as to how I can lessen my harm to the environment by my travel choices. So it was good to see, and I now know a bit more about how to make those little changes when I do drive.
I came across a very interesting finding through one of these websites. I strongly encourage you to check it out: Scorecard. I put in my zip code to find out how we in St. Louis County measure compared to the rest of the world in terms of pollution. Turns out, in 2002 we ranked among the 20% dirtiest counties in the whole US!!!!! Whaaat!?!?! This is a pretty cool site, so I definately encourage you to check it out, and get a better idea of our county as a whole and what effect we are having on our world as a whole. Personally, I find it pretty scary.

A few more websites I found interesting and helpful in this area~
Best Foot Forward

All things considering from my little exercises here, I think I am now going to make sure to do something different each day to make myself and my ecological footprint a little less. That being said, I am going to walk to school today :) Have a good one!