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Ecological Footprints From Around The World: Where Do You Fit In?

The document discusses ecological footprints, which measure the amount of land needed to support a person's lifestyle. It provides data on average ecological footprints by country. Canadians have a large footprint of 8.56 hectares compared to 0.67 hectares in Ethiopia. Tables show factors like population density, energy use, and GDP that influence footprints. Larger countries with higher consumption tend to have bigger footprints than developing nations. The student worksheet calculates their footprint and compares it to averages in Ghana and Ethiopia, finding developed nations' footprints are much greater.

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Armaan Noorani
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226 views

Ecological Footprints From Around The World: Where Do You Fit In?

The document discusses ecological footprints, which measure the amount of land needed to support a person's lifestyle. It provides data on average ecological footprints by country. Canadians have a large footprint of 8.56 hectares compared to 0.67 hectares in Ethiopia. Tables show factors like population density, energy use, and GDP that influence footprints. Larger countries with higher consumption tend to have bigger footprints than developing nations. The student worksheet calculates their footprint and compares it to averages in Ghana and Ethiopia, finding developed nations' footprints are much greater.

Uploaded by

Armaan Noorani
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Ecological Footprints From Around the World:

Where Do You Fit In?

How Much Land Do You Need to Live?


If you had to provide everything you use from your own land —
how much land area would you need? This land would have to
provide you with all of your food, water, energy and everything
else that you use. The amount of land you would need to
support your lifestyle is called your Ecological Footprint. The
ecological footprint is one way of measuring the impact a person
has on the environment.

Is the World Big Enough for All of Our BIG Feet?

The size of a person’s Ecological Footprint will depend on many factors. Do you grow
your own food? Do you walk or drive? Do you use renewable or non-renewable energy
sources? Everyone has an ecological footprint because we all need to use the earth’s
resources to survive. But we must make sure we don’t take more resources than the
earth can provide.

Different people in the same country will have different sized ecological footprints.
Different countries also have different ecological footprints. For example, a person
with the average Canadian lifestyle has an ecological footprint of 8.56 hectares. A
person living in Ethiopia, Africa, has an average ecological footprint of 0.67 hectares.

Examine Table 1 below to see Ecological Footprints for the average person from
many different countries of the world.

Table 1: Global Ecological Footprints 2020


Country Ecological Footprint
(hectares per person)
United States of America 8.22
Canada 8.17
France 5.14
United Kingdom 7.93
El Salvador 2.07
Ghana 1.97
Vietnam 1.65
Ethiopia 1.02
Source: Ecological Footprint of Nations, 2004.

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Table 2 compares some information for four countries. How would factors such as
population density, electricity use, and oil consumption affect the size of a
person’s ecological footprint?

Table 2: 2005 Country Comparison Statistics


Canada Ghana Vietnam Ethiopia
Country Size (km2) 9,985,000 239,000 330,000 1,127,000
Population (million) 32 21 83 73
Population Density 3.2 87.9 251.5 64.8
(people/ km2)
Yearly Electricity Use 487.3 6.2 32.0 2.0
(billion kilowatt-hours)
Oil Consumption 2,200,000 38,000 185,000 23,000
(barrels/day)
Highways (km) 1,408,800 46,200 93,300 33,300
GDP* per capita $31,500 $2,300 $2,700 $800
Source: The World Factbook, 2005. www.cia.gov for all figures except those marked.

*Gross Domestic Product: The value of current production of goods and services coming from
within a country (doesn’t include all the goods and services being imported).

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Student Worksheet
Calculating Your Ecological Footprint
You have calculated your ecological footprint using thr website below.
Go to www.earthday.org and click on Your Ecological Footprint (online survey).
Using the data from you calculation and the sources above answer the following questions.
1. How does your footprint compare to the average Canadian?
My ecological footprint is 8.1gha. For the average Canadian it is 7.7gha captured in 2015 which
in fact is very close to my ecological footprint. I have a higher ecological footprint than the
average person in Canada.

2. List three things you do currently that help to minimize your footprint.
- Minimize use of electricity.
- Use sustainable sources of energy.
- Refuse, reduce, reuse, rot, recycle.

3. List three things you do that increase your ecological footprint.


- Using cars ass a everyday mode of transport.
- Unnecessary use of electricity.
- Wasting resources such as food.

4. What are three things that you could do differently now to reduce the size of your
ecological footprint?
- Minimize use of electricity.
- Minimize wastage of resources.
- Use resources wisely.

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5. How does the size of your footprint compare to the average person living in Ghana? What
does this mean?
My footprint is 8.1gha. In Ghana, the average footprint is 2.0gha in which is a very low footprint
and this means that they always try to use resources wisely and do not waste them. The use of
cars is very low in Ghana and they usually use either bikes or just walk.

6. How many Ethiopians would use the same amount of resources as found in
your Ecological Footprint?

An average Ethiopians footprint is 1.0gha and mine is 8.1gha so this means that 8
Ethiopians could cover up my ecological footprint.

7. What are some of the factors that may contribute to Canadians having larger
Ecological Footprints than people in developing countries, such as Ghana or Vietnam?
Explain how those factors would affect the size of the ecological footprint.

Canada has a use for multiple industrial places and they also tend to have a big population in
which can affect the footprint. The factors are the country size, population, population density,
Yearly Electricity Use, Oil Consumption, Highways and of course the GDP capita in which is the major
factor and is really high in Canada.

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