Often, when you think about food production, it is only the carbon emissions in terms of fertilizer use, transportation etc that is accounted for. However, food production also has a steep water footprint. The water footprint is yet another environmental yardstick that measures how much water goes into the making of something. In 2009, the […]
Tag Archives | ecological footprint
Excessive Consumption Pushing Our Planet Into Ecological Debt
There is no doubt about the fact that well-to-do economies have contributed greatly towards the development of our planet, both economically and technologically. But do you know that underdeveloped nations too have contributed substantially by not doing anything? Sounds strange? Well, rich nations are playing a great role towards depleting the natural resources of our […]
The Water in Our Food
By Arjen Y. Hoekstra, University of Twente, the Netherlands One single component in the total water footprint of humanity stands out: the water footprint related to food. About 85% of humanity’s water footprint is related to the consumption of agricultural products; 10% relates to industrial products and only 5% to domestic water consumption. Within the […]
How Large is Your Ecological Footprint & How Can You Reduce it?
Eradicating poverty is one of the main thrusts of the South African government. The National Framework for Sustainable Development identifies how the wealthy are required to make adjustments if poverty is to be adequately addressed. The footprint of the wealthy has to be dramatically reduced. “Ecological footprinting” is an accounting tool that measures how much biologically […]
Coffee and the environment (and what you can do)
Love drinking coffee but concerned about the environment? Coffee has earned a reputation as a crop which is not particularly eco-friendly. Concerns about soil degradation, deforestation, pesticide use, and water quality have become commonplace. Yet westerners continue to drink one cup of coffee for every two cups of water consumed– and that’s a lot of […]
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Humans Now Consuming 25% of All Plant Life Growing Each Year
Plenty of research on both both personal and national ecological footprints has shown that we are using Earth’s resources at unsustainable rates, that we are using them up faster than they can be regenerated. Now, some new work from NASA digs a bit deeper, examining how plant consumption is increasing as both population and consumerism […]
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What is a carbon footprint?
A carbon footprint is “the total set of greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions caused by an organization, event or product”. For simplicity of reporting, it is often expressed in terms of the amount of carbon dioxide, or its equivalent of other GHGs, emitted.
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Dubai has most damaging eco footprint on Earth, WWF report
Humanity’s demands on natural resources are sky-rocketing to 50 per cent more than the earth can sustain, reveals the 2010 edition of WWF’s Living Planet Report – the leading survey of the planet’s health. The biennial report, produced in collaboration with the Zoological Society of London and the Global Footprint Network, uses the global Living […]
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