Imagine you have a steady flow of groceries and other products you use in your home delivered right to your front door. It's a magical transporter that drops it right at your door. You get a set amount each day, just enough for what you need to survive. Your food, shelter, and water are provided right at your front steps. Everyone in your house gets their even split of all the supplies. If everyone takes what they need you will be very happy and comfortable. Unlucky for you, a greedy older brother does not respect the needs of the other people in the house. He eats twice his amount, takes most of the water and even wastes some of it. Soon the family will see the effects of someone overusing the steady supply of resources. Bad News!
The example above can be used to help you understand the concept of an ecological footprint. When the family uses the resources (groceries, water, and supplies) they are making a "footprint." The more of the resources you use the larger your footprint will be. So who in the example above will have the largest footprint?
Big Brother
For several decades now humans have been using more resources than the Earth can provide. This problem is creating some huge footprints. Ecologists, scientist who study how living things effect the environment, call these footprints our ecological footprint. The choices that we make in our everyday life determine the size of our ecological footprint.
The next post has an quick quiz you can take to see if you understand what creates a big ecological footprint.
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