Ecological Footprint

# of earths: 7.3
lowest: garbage x1
highest: food x12
After taking the consumer consequences quiz, my score was equivalent to 7.3 Earths, with my lowest footprint correlating to garbage and my highest correlating to food. I'm not a big fan of surveys like this, because the data presented is completely arbitrary: even the link that explained how the results were tallied gave no specific information. I personally don't believe that I consume more than I reasonably should. The fact that my food score heavily skewed my total score upwards basically negates the entire game, because I'm not about to stop eating any time soon. Other than that, I really doubt I consume more than the average American: I live in a huge apartment building with a minuscule electric bill, only drive to work and school, and fly a couple times a year.

I'm in the process of replacing my light bulbs with CFLs, mostly for economic reasons. And I recycled about 25 pounds of bottles yesterday, along with a month's worth of newspapers. And I don't buy as much as I used to, once again for economic reasons. I'm also trying to cut down on the amount of grains and dairy I eat.

Food Intake and Packaging

Part A - Daily Food Intake
Breakfast - 2 Cups Kashi Go-Lean Cereal (280 cal.), 1 Cup Soymilk (70. cal)
Lunch - 2 1/4lb. Costco Polish sausage w/ bun (936. cal), 16 oz. Raspberry iced tea (140 cal.)
Dinner #1 - (home) Turkey sandwich, multigrain bread (345. cal), 2 Dogfish Head IPAs (440 cal.)
Snacks - 1 Choc. chip cookie (60. cal), 1/2 20 oz. Coke (146. cal), 2 Cups Soymilk (140. cal)
Total Daily Caloric intake: 2557
Sources: About.com, food packaging labels, Dogfish Head (by phone)

My food comes from all over the U.S. I'm pretty sure I didn't eat anything imported today. It would probably not be sustainable for 6.7 billion people to eat the way I do. Thankfully, most people in the third world don't have the option, so for now, my eating habits are sustainable.

Part B - Packaging
I work in retail, in an electronics store, so today 99% of the items I handled were very likely not sustainable. Just about everything comes in a plastic case, inside a cardboard box full of styrofoam, inside a plastic tote, stacked high and wrapped in thick plastic shrink wrap. When I say not sustainable, what I mean is not economically sustainable. Most of the cardboard gets recycled, and the totes are reused. The plastic could be recycled if that was a priority. The most important thing in this equation is the items themselves, 90% of which are completely unnecessary. Who needs a netbook? Most of the people that buy them already have a laptop and a blackberry. Why do you need that printer? Unless you're in an office, it is much more economical to keep everything electronically and print the occasional document at the library. The list goes on. This will be the true downfall of humanity: our gluttony. That being said, I own all this crap, and everything I buy comes in one-use packaging.

Matanzas Pass

I'm not going to lie, the best part about the Matanzas Pass trip wasn't the boardwalk or the history lesson. It was the sea grape jelly with crackers. Hands down. That being said, the boardwalk was pretty fun. I've lived in Florida my whole life, so I already knew the difference between mangroves. It was pretty cool to see the bay, it was actually nice that day. The history lesson was interesting, I didn't realize there had been bridges previous to the one that exists today.

This is a picture from the covered area looking out into the bay. If you zoom in on the bottom center of the picture you can see a few lightning whelks.


Red and black mangroves on the right of the boardwalk.


Red and black mangroves on the left of the boardwalk.

Conservation 20/20, the Lee County department that manages the Matanzas Pass preserve, buys property and restores it to its "natural" state. I don't believe that county tax dollars should be spent this way because there is too much potential for corruption. A landowner that finds himself in possession of otherwise worthless real estate could easily make a payoff to a county commissioner in exchange for purchasing the land, for example.

Other than the Matanzas Pass preserve, I have visited the Six Mile Cypress Preserve, Koreshan, Deep Lagoon, Billy Creek, and a few others.

Water Rights

Since the dawn of the oil era, it has been common practice that whoever owns the land owns what lies beneath it. The same logic should apply to water and every other free-flowing natural resource. Therefore, so long as the pumping of groundwater does not detract from the private enjoyment of the land owned by one's neighbors, one should be allowed to extract water from one's own property. Legally speaking, impact on wildlife is not a consideration so long as the appropriate permits are obtained. Morally speaking, since I don't believe humanity has a responsibility to "preserve" nature, and provided the water will in fact be used to the benefit of the people, a property owner should be able to geoscape the land to the extent necessary to obtain the water demanded. If T. Boone Pickens's plan is rejected, presumably, it will be because Dallas can obtain water elsewhere, cheaper. There should be no legal challenge to his right to pipe water to Dallas provided he has the rights to build the pipeline. I don't think we will experience any major crises in Florida, given that not only does the SFWMD keep a tight rein on water supplies in times of drought, but also our proximity to water. The advances in desalinization technology over the last few decades have made it such that while more expensive than natural freshwater, it is economically feasible to substitute seawater.

My Water Usage
Based on the advertised volume of water my toilet, dishwasher, shower, and sink use, I estimate that I used approximately 58 gallons of water today. I believe this is far lower than the average water usage per person, at least in America. I don't "conserve" water, although I am mindful that water isn't free and am therefore not wasteful.