Science reflection

What is sustainability? What is a human footprint? What can we do to reduce our human footprint?

Sustainability is directly defined as "To bear". This can be applied in conversations, when you're supporting a heavy weight, and in our case when you are trying to save out planet. To me, sustainability is when we make simple sacrifices, such as taking shorter showers or turning off the light when you leave a room, to preserve what is left of earths natural resources. Our planet has changed more in the last 50 years then it has in the previous 10,000 and we are to blame. Every person has a human footprint, which is the mark you make on the planet. It's the food you eat, the energy you use, and the heat and AC you blast in the winter. All of these are some of the many ways that we leave our mark on the planet. In class, we watched a video of some of the biggest contributors to our human footprint. The video provided some statistics of these factors were astounding. Some of the statistics that surprised me most were these. The average American will drink 43,371 cans of soda in a lifetime. We will eat 4 cows, 3 pigs, and 1,423 chickens. We will spend more money on beauty products, then on education. We have a huge variety of ways we impact the environment, we also have a variety of solutions. There are some that are shoved down our throats by the media like using energy efficient light bulbs, and others like eating less meat and not supporting the overpopulation that the meat industry's promote. They are now making eco-friendly food and by purchasing this maybe once a week we are helping reduce our carbon footprint. We are in trouble of completely depleting our earths resources and there are so many simple ways to stop. According to the site we would need 5.2 earth to support me (I'm really sorry guys!)