Ecosystems, habitats, energy flows, and ecological footprints!

All words that have significant meaning and relate to concepts for the world around us. However, as Canadians we have a large ecological footprint of 3.8 earths. But, do we have 3.8 earths!? Our consumption is unsustainable and harmful to ecosystems and the world around us.

The Earth has defined boundaries and everything we use must come from somewhere and must go somewhere when we’re done with it. This applies to the water we drink, the paper we write on, the food we eat, the furniture in our house, and the electricity we use. Using less and being more efficient in the things we use and do can minimize our ecological footprint. For example with energy – something as simple as changing your light bulbs from incandescent to LED can result in huge savings of energy. Once you’ve done that, if you remember to turn off your lights the savings are even greater. For a paper example, if we all used both sides of the paper we’d cut our paper use in half and we would need to cut fewer trees! For a water example, every time you leave the tap running when you’re brushing your teeth, that’s 18 glasses of potable water (it took a lot of energy to pump and purify that) down the drain.

Students at Southdale North Woodside can tell you all about the impacts that we have on the Earth as they did when Engagement Officer Anna-Sarah Eyrich visited them.