Prepared by:Debashish Kumar Dutta MP12017

Date: 16/02/13

Overview: Humanity needs what nature provides. The Ecological Footprint measures how fast we are consume natural resources (like Water, Land & Air) & generate waste compared to how fast nature can absorb our waste and generate new resources. Since the 1970s, humanity has been in ecological overshoot because what we use in a year Earth takes one and half year to regenerate. We maintain this overshoot by liquidating the Earths resources. By measuring the Footprint of a populationan individual, city, business, nation, or all of humanitywe can assess our pressure on the planet, which helps us manage our ecological assets more wisely and take personal and collective action in support of a world where humanity lives within the Earths bounds. Self Footprint Measurement (Calculate at http://myfootprint.org/.):Footprint Footprint Country Footprint (After In global hectares (Five Year Average (Present) Five Back) Year ) Carbon Footprint 1.98 6.05 2.62 16.78 Food Footprint 1.96 2.36 1.96 2.22 Housing Footprint 0.94 1.07 0.90 0.88 Goods and Services 1.76 1.56 Footprint 1.32 2.01 My total footprint 6.64 6.80 11.04 21.89 Cropland footprint Pastureland footprint Marine fisheries footprint Forestland footprint My total footprint Number of Earths 1.28 1.54 1.42 2.42 6.64 0.42 1.35 1.54 1.48 2.43 6.80 0.43 1.82 2.76 2.36 4.08 11.04 0.70 2.87 5.85 4.54 8.64 21.89 1.39 Summary:- Self Ecological Footprints are calculated for three different time periods in terms of equivalent global hectares of productive land and compared against present country (India) average. The results shows that present country footprint average is 6.64 where as Self footprint average have a high increasing trend from 6.8 to 21.89 within a span of 15years time. This data also reveals that 5years back I was living much more ecologically conscious lifestyle than now. If everyone were living like me than we would have been using only 0.43 of Earth resources.

But my present life style and future aspiration indicates that I am moving towards an ecologically unbalanced lifestyle, if everyone live lifestyle like me, we will need 1.39 Earth in next five year. This is a very serious indication of resource scarcity which we may face in near future. We can considerable reduce this effect by reducing the carbon footprint through adapting ecologically balanced lifestyle like:- Use of cleaner transport, adapting energy shaving habits, water shaving, use of recycle products, Choosing sustainable building material, furnishing & cleaning products etc.