Ecological Footprint

by Roger Lovejoy

The Ecological Footprint is defined as the area needed to produce the required biomass to supply or absorb the total energy a person uses in terms of CO₂.

It is measure of Earth's available resources once fossil and nuclear fuels are so depleted that extraction will be uneconomical. Coming soon!

The Global Footprint is how many planets like Earth would be needed if everyone used the same resources as the owner of the footprint.

Using the calculator below you can see that if everyone on the planet lived as the UK average we would need 3.5 planets to fuel our resources.
(The form is set to the average UK level of consumption.)

Global Hectares

The global hectare is not a fixed unit and would be better termed the 'Human Allotment'. The term refers to the amount of land available per person and decreases as population grows.

Other problems with the idea of a value based on global land area and global population, is that land is not distributed equally across nations and their citizens and is not readily available as a pot we can all take from. If it was there would be no hunger.

For example compare the 3.5 planets required, if all humans used the same as those in Plymouth, to the 12 UK sized areas we would need if all the people in the UK used as much as Plymouth citizens.

On the same basis as the above example, given that Plymouth's current footprint is 12.5 acres per and the small amount of land available to Plymouth residents, the figure is 25,000 times the size of Plymouth. This is even more extreme for cities and areas with greater populated densities and or larger footprints.

The UK's footprint is 13 acres/person. As there is about 1.17 acres of land per person the total land needed is 12 times that of the UK. Clearly someone is paying for our luxuries. The UK uses the resources of 720 million people or 50% of 1,500 billion. To clarify those 1,500 billion will only be able to have 50% of thier ration to allow 60 million of us 1200%. Putting it another way those 1,500 million will have 4% of the resources we have.

The figure is presently tempered by the unsustainable use of fossil and nuclear fuels and that billions of people do live in poverty.

Globally we don't share the land area equally and our national resource is much less. However being free to live anywhere in the EU means we as UK residents have more land to use at the expense of other land rich EU members.

To continue their current lifestyle, once the nuclear and fossil fuels run out, the population of the United States, some 300 Million, would require all the whole planet as a biomass resource. Solar and tidal energy extracts will hopefully alleviate much of this demand.

Plymouth with it's ecological footprint of 12.5 acres (5 Hectares) has only 0.06 acre per person.  What can Plymouth do? 

The purpose of these 'calculators' is so that people can measure their consumption relative to an defined background. What is obvious is that the majority of people using it have either not realised how indulgent they are, which beggars belief, or more likely they have but don't care, having done little or nothing to reduce their environmental impact.

For a more detailed breakdown of your fossil fuel useage for electricty, heating and transport only, use this calculator .