Consumption

In a moment of self-assured eco-ego, I took the ecological footprint quiz that is featured at http://www.earthday.net/footprint/. I did the quiz twice, once based on how I live here in Belize and again based on my lifestyle that I was living in Seattle before I came to Belize. The way the quiz works is that you answer questions on how you shop, how you travel, and what you eat. Based on those answers, the quiz determines how many planet earths would be needed if everyone in the world were to live exactly as you do. It was obvious that my life in Seattle would have more of an impact, a footprint, on the earth than my one here in Belize, but I thought that the comparison would be interesting. After all, I don’t even have indoor plumbing, a car, or access to a shopping mall. I use 1 fluorescent light bulb for about 3 hours in the evening, I use about 8 gallons of water for all my drinking, washing, bathing, and I walk, hitchhike, or take a crowded bus when I need to travel. I am the picture of a sustainable lifestyle, I humbly thought while taking the quiz for the second time.

Apparently it is possible, and therefore necessary. Turns out that if everyone in the world were to live as an extravagantly as I do here in the jungles of Belize, we would need 2.3 earths. Living in Seattle, it goes up just a little to 3.1 earths.  Not a comforting thought when you think about the millions and billions of people around the world, including people here in my own village, who are doing everything in their power to catch up to the consumption habits of people in the United States and their only slightly less consumption driven counterparts in Europe. The biggest mark against me in both my Seattle and Belize eco-footprints was my use of air travel. My habit of traveling half-way around the world on a biannual basis is not at all good for planet earth. Add to that the problem of garbage disposal, where my choices include burning it, burying, or carrying it to the district town where it is then collected, burned or buried. Burning it releases all sorts of toxins and carbon dioxide into the air and burying it has the potential of leaking the same bad things into the ground surface waters. My heart sank at the impossibility of this task that humanity has in front of it, namely saving our home.

So what can I do? What can we all do? Short of doing away with indoor plumbing, forgoing all traveling or joining the Peace Corps for a couple of years, there are some things we can do. Money is a powerful thing, so use it for good. Buy food that is local, organic, or both. Invest in and shop at companies that are supportive of green building and transportation initiatives (build their HQ’s up to LEED standards and give their employees bus passes). Instead of taking 2 one week trips a year, take a two-week vacation, you’ll enjoy it more anyways.  Ride a bike or walk every once in awhile, you know you need to anyways. And support local and national leaders that are committed to taking climate change seriously.  I don’t like to preach, but this was an awakening, realizing that even living the way I do right now, there are still things that I can do better.