Ecological Footprint

Here's my first assignment! 
So, if everyone lived the way that I do, it would take 5.1 Earths to provide enough resources for everyone to survive. That's insane! 

I really try hard to be environmentally friendly by recycling and buying energy efficient products. However, I do work full time and my job is 20 miles away so I knew that would affect my footprint! The amount of meat and products not grown locally that someone consumes also makes your ecological footprint bigger and I had never even thought about that before! Products not grown locally have to be processed and shipped and that just adds to other parts of the footprint. It's really crazy when you think about it.

According to the Global Footprint Network's website, - I provided the link below so that you can find out your ecological footprint too!- services, things you pay for to get done, accounts for the largest part of my ecological footprint, and goods, tangible items, the smallest.

After getting my results I clicked "explore scenarios" to find out ways to lessen the size of my footprint. The suggestions given to me were to eat half the meat I eat now, purchase more recycled material, use more energy renewable sources such as solar panels, as well as buy only energy-efficient appliances, use public transportation at least once a week, and vacation locally instead of flying. If I were to do all of this my ecological footprint would go down to 4 Earths! It's amazing how much of a difference doing these simple things can make.

Here are some snapshots from the website!

 






Check it out yourself! http://www.footprintnetwork.org/calculator

A Little About Me

Hi! My name is Samantha Gayton and I have created this blog for my college environmental science class. I am 22 years old and have lived in Southern California my entire life. To start, my favorite color is green, and my favorite number is 27. I have a huge place in my heart for both animals and the environment and in my lifetime, at some point I want to be able to say that I helped save the world. In my spare time I'm always trying to go hiking, biking, swimming down at the beach, or anything else outdoorsy that I can do with my 11 month old puppy Milo! 

I'm not married, and have no kids, but I have been in a relationship with my boyfriend for almost 5 years now. I love to travel! I've been to Louisiana, Texas, Arizona, Illinois (twice!), Georgia, and I am going to Seattle, Washington in April. I'd really, really love to go to Hawaii, Alaska, and Australia one day. The first thing on my bucket list is to see the northern lights in Alaska so that's the place I look forward to the most! As for work, I have worked for Quiksilver Retail since November of 2009 and am now a full time Supervisor. 

Last fall I was set on becoming a Physical Therapist and I took Biology 1 with Huff (also the teacher of this environmental science class) just as a required class. I absolutely fell in love with biology and everything about it. Like I said before I love both animals and the environment, but I guess I never realized how passionate I really was about those things until I took that class. I found myself looking forward to every class, as well as wanting to change my major and can now happily say I am set on becoming an Environmental Scientists and would love to work for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife!

Also, you can check out my Personal Posts, the link is under "Pages". They are environmental/biology based posts so feel free to look at them!