THE HUMAN FOOTPRINT
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Have you ever stopped to think about how your actions add up over a lifetime?
Just think of all the things we produce and consume.
Imagine the food we eat, all the soda we drink,
all the water we flush down the drain,
all the clothing we buy,
the amount of fuel we use and all the things we depend upon
We are going to lay out some of the everyday goods we consume in our lives,
to show the impact each of us makes upon the world.
It’s the journey of our lifetime
and as we take each step,
we will see how we leave our impression,
our step upon the world.
This is our “Human Footprint”.
This is our world. A finite place of infinite possibilities.
It’s been around for over 3.8 billion years.
If we think of the Earth as being one day old,
then we’ve been around for just a few seconds.
Yet with over 6 billion of us on the planet,
our presence is earthshaking.
As individuals, we may think we have little impact on the world around us.
We may feel that our contribution to the world goes unnoticed.
We’d be wrong!
each of us makes a contribution;
we each make an impact
and we each leave a footprint;
and by examining everything we consume across the country,
we have been able to calculate the effect we each make on the world around us:
the miles we each drive,
the waste we throw away,
the gasoline we use,
the quantities, the numbers
that reveal the impact that each of us makes
per person,
per lifetime.
As individuals we’re all different
but statistically we’re remarkably the same.
So let’s imagine the average American boy and girl.
They could be anyone and their bid like everyone.
As they grow up we will follow them
on a 77-year 9-month journey
from babyhood to old age.
We will see what we each eat,
what we drink,
how we travel.
and what we buy and consume during each phase of our lives
because at no time in our history
have we consumed as much as we are now.
Recently the Wildlife Conservation Society
mapped our impact on the planet.
They called this the “Human Footprint”
and found that just 17% of the world’s land surface
is unaffected by us.
These untouched areas they called the “Last of the Wild”,
this means that we directly influence
83% of the world’s land.
One of the most developed countries on Earth is the United States
home to 304 million people.
And it is here in the US
that our boy and our girl grow up.
But even as toddlers we’re already using our resources
we spend our first two and a half years in diapers,
brilliantly designed for comfort,
convenience and hygiene.
Diapers are made to use once and throw away
so busy parents lose track
of just how many of them our children go through
and we never stop to think about
what is gone into making
the average diaper.
So we’re setting out
all the parts and materials
that make up a diaper,
we need a lot of space to do this
because just one little diaper
contains a surprising array of ingredients
and we're laying out all the materials needed
to make not just one
but all the diapers
a single child would get through.
So, how many diapers require changing
over our first two and a half years of life?
Add up so fast
and it looks like this:
this is a little more than 4 diapers a day,
1518 diapers a year
for a total of 3796 diapers
over our diaper wearing time span.
It’s convenient for parents
but all these diapers
make a big impact on the wider world.
Because there’s more inside a disposable diaper
than meets the eye.
It takes half a pint of crude oil
per diaper
to make the plastic water proof lining
that encases them
this is the amount of crude oil
you’ll need for just one child.
And over 30 months
that single diaper baby
would use 715 pounds of plastic:
that’s as heavy as three heavy weight wrestlers.
And that’s not all
the soft fluffy padding of the inside
requires the pulp
of four and a half trees.
All to keep one American toddler tidy.
Multiply that by the number of babies
in the US
and the grand total
is 18 billion disposable diapers
thrown away every year.
That’s enough to stretch around the world
90 times
and all those diapers would long
outlive the babies who soiled them.
It could take 500 years or more
for them to biodegrade.
It could be even longer
because we don’t really know
how long it takes plastic
to break down
and a 500 years supply of diapers
we cover the entire state
of Texas.
So how can we avoid doing this?
We may think that reusable diapers are the answer
they’re made of natural fibers
and avoid plastic
but have you ever considered what it takes to launder them?
Washing all those diapers at home
would use 22455 gallons of water
By your first birthday
we would already have been responsible
for more carbon dioxide emissions than someone in Tanzania
would generate in a lifetime.
But this is just the start
of the impact we make;
As crucial as the air we breath
our toddlers require food
and from the very beginning
this means milk.
a lifelong taste of milk has begun.
we drink it
we put it on cereals
we find it in cakes
in coffee
in ice cream
milk is in so many food we can consume it
without realizing it
While we’re busy consuming milk,
a whole industry is busy preparing,
preserving
packaging
and transporting it to us.
and it all starts here.
Cows live on 65000 dairy farms
stretched across the United States.
One cow produces six and a half gallons of milk
every day.
each cow eats 100 pounds of grass
and other food stuff each day
and drinks 25 to 50 gallons of water.
To serve all of America
it takes 9.2 million cows;
more than the human population of New Jersey
and all those cows need a lot of space.
To get a sense of it,
dairy cows occupy a chunk of America
covering more than 20 million acres,
the size of the state of Louisiana.
We need them
because each of us drinks
about 3 pints of milk a week.
In a month we’re done 14 pints
which in a year
adds up to 168 pints.
Over the course of a lifetime
all those cups of coffee,
bowls of cereal and ice cream
add up
And this
is what it looks like.
We’ve laid out
every single pint of milk
that we would each consume
in our life time.