Posted by Benjamin on: 11.21.2007 /
So recently I found this little exercise from public radio called consumer consequences. It’s a sort of a game you play where you enter various data about yourself, like how much you drive your car, how many miles per gallon it gets, how much you fly every year, how much food you eat, of which types, how much garbage you throw out every week, how much you use public transport, how much your electric bill is on average, and so forth. Then it gives you an estimate of how many earths we’d need if everyone were consuming at the same level as you.
I was kind of bummed ’cause I got rated at 3.5 planets. Yikes. But I don’t think it took certain thinks into account–like what percentage of my food comes from food sources that would otherwise be thrown in the garbage (like dumpstering or gleaning). Ah well.
If you play, why not come back here and leave a comment about how many planetus worth of consumption you are engaging in, and how you felt about it. And any ideas you have for reducing consumption. It took me about 12 minutes.
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Comment by: joe
1 11/21/07 4:24 AM | Comment Link |3.4 although some of the options don’t translate well outside of the USA. I think our impact is likely to be much higher than this.
Comment by: joe
2 11/21/07 4:29 AM | Comment Link |According to this calculator from WWF UK, we cost 2.88 worlds.
Having said that, I’m wondering how much impact they’re allowing for eating organic food, given that much of this is imported great distances into the UK.
Comment by: Staci
3 11/21/07 1:36 PM | Comment Link |I was a 3.4 too. Not great, but when I clicked on the “compare” button at the end I felt slightly better. (Not sure why, actually, since that just means most people are killing the earth quicker and I’m sure the worst offenders are not playing this game.) My biggest area for improvement was in the use of public transportation. (Our state is pretty light on such options.) I did wish it was a little less subjective on what things meant. Like, do you buy more or less than average. Some people might be too hard on themselves while others are too easy.
Comment by: benjamin ady
4 11/21/07 2:21 PM | Comment Link |Staci, Joe
thankyou for playing and sharing! You both have good points about some technical problems or doubts about the accuracy of the calculator. I think it’s kewl just because it get’s us thinking about these issues.
Comment by: Rachel
5 11/25/07 8:29 PM | Comment Link |I scored a 3.1. I scored the best in the area of trash - we have a fabulous recycling program in our community. But I scored the worst on food and that kind of surprised me. I guess it is from eating meat regularly and buying mostly non-organic foods.
I agree with Staci that it was pretty subjective, but it does make a person think. My goal is to take this same test again in a year and see my score go down.
Comment by: benjamin ady
6 11/25/07 9:13 PM | Comment Link |Go Rachel. Lowest score here yet. Yeah–to take the same test in a year and do better. that’s a great idea.
Comment by: Elaine
7 11/30/07 10:20 AM | Comment Link |well - I’m bummed - I thought our efforts to be better stewards - recycling everything we can, composting (my husband really does this), working from home, new windows, limited shopping, and other things…I scored 4.5 worlds and thought it was pretty good til I saw your scores.
Good job all of you. I will have to look closer at my life and make changes.
Comment by: Benjamin Ady
8 12/1/07 2:50 PM | Comment Link |Elaine,
well, actually, we all fudged a little on some of the answers, hoping for a better score …
=)
I’m stoked that it’s making you think about this stuff, though. Would love to hear about any specific changes you make.
The one that wiped out my score was the food. It said I was consuming 9 planets worth of food. And that sort of freaked me out, because I already have this underlying feeling that I probably eat too much. I’m thinking I want to move toward simple, sufficient food. Be more like Ghandi. But it’s hard to do.
Comment by: Elaine
9 12/2/07 9:37 AM | Comment Link |Well - I don’t know if I feel better or worse…lol
My husband really leads the way with this…he is faithful about recycling every piece of paper he touches - we have a shredder for the “personal” info papers. I follow his lead (most of the time) on this. It is amazing to discover how much paper comes through our mailbox.
It is also nice that our local government has made it easy to have paper, plastic, aluminum cans, and cardboard picked up. Also, several times per year, they have drop-off points for electronics, batteries, and appliances.
I really love that the community is making it easier to do these things.
What would it take to motivate me to have a garden????
Comment by: Justice and Compassion
10 02/28/08 12:18 AM | Comment Link |[...] Last November, we wrote about Consumer Consequences, a online game you can play which will give you an idea how your consumption levels match up with the planet’s resources. It takes about seven minutes to complete, and at the end it gives you a rating of how many earths we would need if everyone consumed at the same levels as you. In November, I was kind of bummed out to learn I was consuming 3.5 earths worth of energy, food, stuff, etc. [...]