Alexander Opryszko

Ecological Footprint
Total Footprint

Goods and Services footprint

Housing Footprint

Food Footprint

Carbon Footprint
0

20
Self

40

60

Rich

80

100 120 140 160 180 200

Frugal

1. Overall, both the carbon and food footprints caused that greatest impact for
myself and the rich lifestyle. For the frugal lifestyle, the Goods and Services
were just as impactful as their carbon footprint, with the Food Footprint being
much smaller. By large margins, the Rich lifestyle is the most impactful on
the environment due to their very large footprint. Some of the reasons why
the Rich lifestyle is so impactful, their use of restaurant and fast-food and
continual air and car travel contributes to the most impact.
2. One other factor that could significantly affect an ecological footprint are a
persons job, and how impactful that is on the environment. Though our
country is starting to become more conscious about the impact that jobs can
have on the environment, pressure from within a company by employees can
help shift the focus into being much more environmentally conscious.
3. My own lifestyle does create a sizable carbon footprint, but as I am a college
student without a large home to my name, I was far below the average for
Americans. My total footprint was 56.7 Hectares vs the average 99.7
hectares. I was distraught to see, however, that if everyone lived like I did, we
would need 3.61 Earths to sustain us. To help reduce my carbon footprint, I
could work on using more public transportation rather than taking a car
everywhere, and to buy more organically grown and local food. A part of
reducing my footprint is just to be more conscious about how I live my life,
and to be aware of how I can change.
4. While I have always prided myself on being environmentally aware, this
exercise definitely brought to light just how fragile our environment is. In our
age or rapidly expanding technology and population, it is imperative that the

Alexander Opryszko
preservation of the environment be our top priority. Todays society seems to
follow a rule of enjoy life now and deal with the consequences later. This has
led to the extreme average ecological footprint of an American. It is shear
insanity that we can continue to live the way that we do in this country,
demanding the attention of the entire world, and be completely unconcerned
that if everyone lived the same lives that we do, our species would need over
six planets to sustain us.