The Ecological footprint

1. The Ecological footprint

2. What is it? • Per capita (per human) ecological footprint (EF) is a way of comparing consumption and lifestyles, and compairing it against nature’s ability to provide for this consumption. • The consumption of energy, • Biomass (food, fiber), • Building material, • Water and other resources are converted into a measure of land area called ’global hectares’(gha).

3. Different footprint sizes • The U.S. : 9.6 gha • Finland: 7.6 gha (four times the capacity)‏ • Belgium: 5.6 gha (over three times the capacity)‏ • Hungary: 3.5 gha • China’s: 1.6 gha • Mozambique: 0.6 gha Notice! In order for the Earth to survive, nobody should have a footprint bigger than 1.8!

4. Notice that the more developed countries have, in general, bigger footprints.

5. EU has 7% of the world’s population but uses 17% of the Earth’s natural resources. • EU’s ecological footprint has grown 70% from 1961. • Finland has the 16th largest footprint in the world.

6. Why does Finland have a big footprint? • Much energy needed for the paper industry • Simple fact of our being one of the developed countries • Long, cold and dark winters and a need to keep homes lit and heated • The large land-area with few people and distance between communities increases the transport distances . ‏

7. But! The Footprint as a way of comparing is criticized because it doesn’t consider all aspects (biodiversity, trade between rural and urban, nuclear vs. coal etc.)‏ So sometimes having a small footprint isn’t the most important thing. • The Finnish biocapacity (how much our nature can produce) figure is among the world’s highest at 12.0 • The United States, for example, the ecological footprint is 9.6, while biocapacity is less than 5. • China and the Arab emirates are even worse off (because of growing demand).

8. Graphs on ecological footprints(from footprintnetwork.org)‏ • On graphs, notice the value of y-axis! • Notice what color the lines are! • Notice the year! (1961-2003)‏

9. Belgium

10. Finland

11. Hungary

12. The World

13. How bad is the situation? • The WWF claims that the human footprint has exceeded the biocapacity (the available supply of natural resources) of the planet by 20 % • This would mean that we need a new Earth by 2050! (as seen graph)‏ • If everyone lived the lifestyle of the average American we would need five planets.

14. What needs to be done? • Better eco-efficiency (better technology)‏ • Use of renewable energy sources • We have to only use what we can produce, Otherwise next generation won’t survive!