Sustainability Anyone?

As our last task together, I would like us to think forward…..

We speak of students graduating and setting off to: ‘make their mark in the world‘…. although this is metaphorical, I wonder how much of  physical ‘mark’ / impact we are making upon the planet and whether the planet, our only planet, can take it……

So… what are you going to do?

DO ALL THREE of the following tests, seek to understand and record your results (and bring them to class to share with your colleagues next week if we haven’t the time this week). The tests give you different output and I would like you to provide all of the indicators:

• http://footprint.wwf.org.uk/
  • My scores:
    • I am using 79% of my ‘allocation’ (i.e. what is ‘fair’ for me to use according to the 2020 targets)
    • I produce 8.2 tonnes of CO2 (a compressed tonne of C02 is about 8 cubic metres – half the volume of my office)
    • my impact is 50% less than the UK average (NB. France is just a little bit higher than the UK), BUT 50% more than the world average
• http://www.footprintcalculator.org/
  • My scores:
    • my personal ‘overshoot day’ (because I am consuming more than the Earth can provide in any given period if everyone lived like me) – was 3rd Sept in 2017 … but by reason of air travel in 2018 this date has advanced to 17th June (my birthday, ironically).  For the rest of the year it is as if I have nothing left in the ‘bank’ and I am going into an unauthorised overdraft situation – which I (or my kids and grandkids) will have to repay/bear the costs of.
    • we would need 1.5 – 2,0 Earths if everyone were to live and consume like me … but, of course, the problem is that we will only ever have the one planet Earth and we have to share it with more and more people every day: just take a look at the live ‘World Population Counter‘ … and be prepared for a shock.  I am writing this in the middle of the afternoon, and already the day has seen births exceed deaths by 250,000…. suggesting that three populations the size of France’s (67,000,000 x 3) get added to the sum total of humanity every year….  Sharing is going to become more an more of an issue….

• https://www.bbc.com/news/health-46865204  .  Scroll down to the middle of the article. Embedded there you will find a calculator of food environmental imacts that, for everything from an apple to beef gives you an idea of its impact in nutrition, C02, water consumption and shows you how much of the world’s land surface your consumption requires.  Have a look – it is quite startling

I am going to ask you to ‘pool’ your results in class and we will see what our class average is and how this relates to the Earth’s resources.  I suspect you may be shocked by the results….. and our last hour or two together will be spent considering what we can and what we WILL do about it….