Captain Planet, He's A Hero (Environment Seminar Blog)

Anyone who has read my blog knows that I am far from being sustainable. If this was a "least likely to harm the Earth" contest, I would get last place. On the bright side, though, if this was a "most likely to harm the Earth" contest then I might get second place, right behind the big industrial food corporations. But I digress. My ecological footprint was a whopping 30.23 acres; nearly 17 acres more than the average adult American's. I was utterly shocked by this result. For one, I have yet to have any disposable income; I have no job or car, so imagine what I'll be like when I do. The thought is frightening. With that in mind, this is my footprint for when I'm in a dorm; a place where there are some factors I don't even have to worry about. Like the trash inventory exercise, this was a huge wake-up call.

What surprised me the most, however, was that the two largest areas contributing to my massive footprint were not what I would have guessed. I had fathomed that food consumption and trash would be my largest contributors to my footprint. On the contrary, Monthly Transportation and Monthly Goods and Services were the two biggest factors. Now, I know, how does the first category make sense? I'm in a completely new state with no car and no knowledge of the transit systems. I do, however, have a sister and aunt who live in Pasadena. This is where I believe my culture and values influence me. In the Persian culture, as well as in other cultures I'm sure, family is important. Extremely important. Mother, father, siblings, extended family, in-laws they're all equally important. Spending time with your family is a strong part of the culture and I value my family highly. Because of this, I visit my family in Pasadena at least twice a month. The gas and mileage, as you can guess, piles up; it becomes costly. Aside from travel on the ground, I generally fly a lot. El Paso, Texas (my hometown) is about 15 hours away from California by car. With my sister and I having different school schedules, we cannot drive together to visit family. Therefore, anytime I want to visit my parents, I fly. Add onto this the fact that my family and I love to travel (domestically and internationally) and the travel footprint escalates! Despite the amount of mileage dedicated to travel, my Monthly Goods and Services footprint was the highest of all. This is all thanks to my little friend: tuition.

My tuition was a major contributor to my footprint (this only including the price of education and a couple of books; no food plan or housing cost included in my education total). Being an out-of-state student, my tuition is near the 50K mark, meaning that it adds a vast amount of acreage to my ecological footprint. Unfortunately, being that getting residency is insanely difficult, it's most likely that the education portion of my footprint will remain relatively high. Furthermore, as I plan to go to graduate school, it'll be a couple of more years until I can finally lower that portion of my footprint. I consider this one of my long term goals of utmost importance: lower my education costs! Once again, it is unfortunate that I do not have direct control of this but, hopefully, I'll be able to finish my education quickly and reduce the amount of money I have to spend on it.

Luckily for myself, Mother Nature and my pocket book, I have a plan. Three, to be precise. In creating vigorous short term, medium term and long term goals, I hope that I can drastically reduce my ecological footprint and better my sustainability efforts. For my short term goals, in an attempt to at least reach the 23.5 acres of usage the average American uses, I plan to attack the two most difficult areas: travel and food. Although Monthly Goods and Services is the biggest contributor to my ecological footprint, as I said before that is solely due to my high tuition; until I graduate or stop attending school, this is unfortunately out of my control. Education can be dealt with in the long term sense; I can attempt to graduate earlier. However, as of now, I cannot change that sad, sad tuition rate. What I can do for my short term goal is watch what I eat and how much I travel. A lot of my food intake consists of pastas and rice (guilty pleasures, what can I say?) I want to stray away from these processed goods and eat more salads and organically grown vegetables. Not only will that lower my footprint but I'm sure it's healthier for me! Besides, making organic salsa is delicious. Can't disagree with that. As for travel, I am not flying internationally this year so that's good news. But the bi-weekly trips to my sister's? As much as I miss my family, I think I'll have to lower the amount of times I go over. Or, instead, find a way that we can both commute to a certain place using the transit system. That way I can still see my family but not have to waste all the mileage and gas.

For my medium term goal, I want to attack the airplane portion of my transportation footprint. Although I do not fly home often, it's definitely more than I'll probably be flying out in the future because it's my first year out of my home state. I'm sure as the years progress, I'll become more accustomed to California and, therefore, won't feel as bad of a need to fly out very often. Moreover, I intend to continue to decrease my footprint (at least to 18 acres) by handling my food intake again. Since, by this time, I'll probably be living in my own apartment then I can freely choose what to buy and can actually cook for myself. If I'm using my own money to purchase goods, then I'll purchase items that give me more bang for my buck. As delicious as sugary snacks are, I wouldn't want to waste so much money on them when they don't fill me up like a good, healthy homecooked meal does.

Lastly, for my long term goal, I hope that I can decrease my ecological footprint to 10 acres, at least. It's definitely a drastic change from where I am now (it's one-third of my current footprint, to be precise) but might as well be like Merkel and tackle my problems radically! During this time in my life, I want to continue to decrease my reliance on automobiles. I want to carpool, use the transit system like it comes naturally to me and ride my bike everywhere. First I would have to learn how to ride a bike, but you get my point. I'd search for furniture and appliances from second-hand stores and use electricity efficient appliances and lightbulbs. Moreover, by keeping tabs on what I eat, making sure to dispose of trash properly and managing my funds carefully then I aim to be a sustainable being in the long term. As for now, I have a lot of work to do. But at least now I know how unsustainable I actually am. And knowing is half the battle.