Ecological footprints

An 'Ecological Footprint' is the amount of land and water area a person or a human population would need to provide the resources required to sustainably support itself.

The term was first coined in 1996 by Canadian ecologist William Rees and his graduate student Mathis Wackernagel. It has proven to be a useful educational tool, especially now that you can easily use websites such as this one to calculate your own footprint.

If you haven't already played around with a site like this you might like to have a go. It only takes a couple of minutes and the answers to 15 questions. Take a look at some of the FAQ's, they do help to make you think about some of the concepts. This all relates back to the very last few minutes of class when I was pointing out that it is not overpopulation itself that is the problem but overconsumption.