Stuff!
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'STUFF'!
ENERGY
WATER
WASTE (coming soon)
DESIGN & RETROFITTING
LAND-SHAPING & FOOD GARDENS
The Story of Stuff
Anyone who knows me, knows my thoughts on 'sustainability' and why I don't often use the word... I don't want to sustain the world in it's current form - I want it to be much healthier and more vibrant than it is. And my contribution towards that is to not take as much from it - that's about the best I've come up with so far.
The amount of gadgets we Westerners buy is as big a contributor to resource depletion as the actual day-to-day running of those things. See the Story of stuff video, right. We'll all pay for the 'stuff' we create and dispose of eventually - some more directly than others.
Step 1: Understanding Our Footprint
The terms 'ecological footprint', 'carbon footprint' and 'going carbon neutral' often get interchanged with a confusing array of ideals and statistics - so what are we actually supposed to be measuring and acting on? How many hectares it takes to prop up our lifestyle, how many tonnes or kg of greenhouse gasses we produce?
Our Western footprints are complex and our shoes are big. We usually don't pay the price for stepping all over other community's back yards in order to have our conveniences and lifestyle gadgets and to be highly mobile and teched- up. Think of the the families in Sth America who's children go without education so they can afford to eat on the pittance that non Fair Trade coffee merchants pay them for their produce, so we can buy a coffee on the way to work, think IKEA a-gadget-for-everything kitchenware (now mostly made in China) that many will use to cook dinner tonight, while families working for the companies who produce the things, will scratch together a basic one-pot meal....for that matter, think of the sea of rubbish novelty items in all those $2 shops and the mess that the plastics industries create to the environments they are located in. The list goes on and on .... and on. Our footprints are much bigger than just the energy and water we use at home - but they are the two areas we often start with because they are the most tangible for us to measure.
Our 'footprint' has 4 main parts (although they do overlap):
You'll find a better description by the guys at Redefining Progress, who've carried on the work started by Wackernagel and Rees in the early 90's - that sought to put a figure on the real cost of our various global lifestyles. You can then take their test by clicking the image below, or do the one above-right if you want a more interactive version to find out how your lifestyle stacks up against other Aussies, and globally (kids get their own gameshow!)
'STUFF'!
ENERGY
WATER
WASTE (coming soon)
DESIGN & RETROFITTING
LAND-SHAPING & FOOD GARDENS
The Story of Stuff
Anyone who knows me, knows my thoughts on 'sustainability' and why I don't often use the word... I don't want to sustain the world in it's current form - I want it to be much healthier and more vibrant than it is. And my contribution towards that is to not take as much from it - that's about the best I've come up with so far.
The amount of gadgets we Westerners buy is as big a contributor to resource depletion as the actual day-to-day running of those things. See the Story of stuff video, right. We'll all pay for the 'stuff' we create and dispose of eventually - some more directly than others.
Step 1: Understanding Our Footprint
The terms 'ecological footprint', 'carbon footprint' and 'going carbon neutral' often get interchanged with a confusing array of ideals and statistics - so what are we actually supposed to be measuring and acting on? How many hectares it takes to prop up our lifestyle, how many tonnes or kg of greenhouse gasses we produce?
Our Western footprints are complex and our shoes are big. We usually don't pay the price for stepping all over other community's back yards in order to have our conveniences and lifestyle gadgets and to be highly mobile and teched- up. Think of the the families in Sth America who's children go without education so they can afford to eat on the pittance that non Fair Trade coffee merchants pay them for their produce, so we can buy a coffee on the way to work, think IKEA a-gadget-for-everything kitchenware (now mostly made in China) that many will use to cook dinner tonight, while families working for the companies who produce the things, will scratch together a basic one-pot meal....for that matter, think of the sea of rubbish novelty items in all those $2 shops and the mess that the plastics industries create to the environments they are located in. The list goes on and on .... and on. Our footprints are much bigger than just the energy and water we use at home - but they are the two areas we often start with because they are the most tangible for us to measure.
Our 'footprint' has 4 main parts (although they do overlap):
- Carbon Footprint (energy and transport)
- Food Footprint
- Housing Footprint
- Goods & Services Footprint (our 'stuff')
You'll find a better description by the guys at Redefining Progress, who've carried on the work started by Wackernagel and Rees in the early 90's - that sought to put a figure on the real cost of our various global lifestyles. You can then take their test by clicking the image below, or do the one above-right if you want a more interactive version to find out how your lifestyle stacks up against other Aussies, and globally (kids get their own gameshow!)
The Energy, Design, Water and Food Gardens 'ecomakeover' pages deal with sorting out the more straight-forward areas of our footprint, but we can also do a massive amount for the planet by having a good hard look at our Goods and Services Footprint, and just NOT BUYING STUFF!!!! Do we really need 4 gadgets for making the perfect capuccino at home when most of the worlds people can't even get access to clean water? What's wrong with that picture - and for that matter, what's wrong with our consciences if we think this is ok?
IN THIS SECTION
The Story of Stuff
Step 1
Understand Your Footprint
Step 2
Rethink & Reduce
Where You Can, then Reuse
and Recycle the Rest
Local links and Resources
The Story of Stuff
Step 1
Understand Your Footprint
Step 2
Rethink & Reduce
Where You Can, then Reuse
and Recycle the Rest
Local links and Resources
Bigfoot Gameshow for kids
