Moray Friends of the Earth
Campaigning for Environmental Justice
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Campaigning for Environmental Justice
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By Mike Bowker
The Ecological Footprint measures people’s natural resource consumption. The footprint relates with nature’s ability to renew these resources. A country’s footprint is the total area required to produce the food and fibre that it consumes, absorb the waste from its energy consumption, and provide space for its infrastructure. People consume resources and ecological services from all over the world, so their footprint is the sum of these areas, wherever they are on the planet. The global Ecological Footprint was 13.5 billion global hectares in 2001, or 2.2 global hectares per person. (A global hectare is a hectare whose biological productivity equals the global average). This demand on nature compares with the Earth’s bio capacity based on its biological productive area – approximately 11.3 billion global hectares, which is a quarter of the Earth’s surface. Therefore, the productive area of the biosphere translates into an average of 1.8 hectares per person. In 2001, humanity’s Ecological Footprint exceeded the global bio capacity by 0.4 global hectares per person, or 21 per cent. This global overshoot began in the 1980`s and has been growing ever since. In effect, overshoot means spending nature’s capital faster than it can be regenerated. This situation could permanently reduce ecological capacity. Factors influencing an Ecological Footprint include changes in population size, average consumption per person, and resource efficiency. The Earth’s bio capacity changes with the amount of biologically productive area and its average productivity. Scotland’s Ecological Footprint is 5.35 global hectares per person. The biggest components of this footprint are materials and waste – 38% and food – 29%. If our footprint was replicated in every other country throughout the World, humanity would require three Earths to survive. In other words, we in Scotland are living a lifestyle way beyond the Earths capacity to support. Scotland’s footprint theoretically, could go down if the government meets it commitments on renewable energy and waste recycling. However, any gains would be quickly nullified if the year on year growth in waste produced and energy consumed is not dramatically reduced soon.
Try the Ecological Footprint Quiz on - www.myfootprint.org to determine your own footprint. For more information see the following websites: |
Send mail to Moray FOE with questions or comments about this web siteWebsite updated 05 February 2009 |
