If everyone in the world consumed as much as I do, we would use up 3.8 earths each. Wow! Considering we only have one earth, that seems way too high. I was feeling a bit smug when I logged in to play the Consumer Consequences game. The game evaluates your consumption habits in each of 6 areas: home (the building itself, how many people live in it), electricity, waste generated, public and personal transportation, food, and use of goods and services, i.e., shopping. At the end of the game, you receive a score that tells you how many earths it would take to sustain all the people on the planet if everyone lived like me.
Yeah, I recycle. So much that we only put our big trash can out on the curb once a week, if that often. Go me! And I use cloth grocery sacks too. That is when I remember to actually take them to the store with me. Gotta work on that. I save as much energy as possible and now that I've played the game, I learned that I need to unplug my cell phone charger when my phone isn't on it. We have only one car and manage to cram 5 people into a house less than 2000 square feet. (Below is a pic of a typical recycling day for me. You should see the inside of the car!)
My score was 1.1 until we got to the part that asks how much of your food is organic and locally grown. This is an area that my husband and I have been talking about more lately, making more of an effort to buy from local farmers. Heck, we live just outside the woods anyway. I know I've passed some farmer's markets and stands on my way to HEB. Next time, I'll stop and see what's up. I did really well in all the other categories though.
One interesting thing I found out was that, in Texas, almost 90% of our power comes from coal and natural gas. I was just wondering about this the other day. Fortunately, we have the largest wind farm in the U.S. and the 2nd greatest wind energy potential. Switching energy companies is definitely something I will be looking into.
When you finish and get your profile, you can even compare yourself to others like you who have played the game too. For example, the score for other females was 3.7, others with Master's degrees was 3.8, others in Texas was 4.2, and others born in 1975 was 3.8. It seems I'm just about average, which isn't necessarily a good thing. Since this is a huge interest for me, I think I should do as much as I can to live below the norm. Now I know the areas I need the most help. Go check out Consumer Consequences for yourself to see if you're living a sustainable life and tell me how you scored.
Here are some other quizzes to help you learn about your impact on the earth.
- Best Foot Forward
- Ecological Footprint Quiz
- Carbon Footprint
- Fight Global Warming's pollution calculator
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