How many acres of land does it take to support one human being? How much crop
and pasture land is required to grow that person's food? How much forest is
needed to provide oxygen, clean air and water as well as paper and building
materials? How many acres of land does it take to absorb an individual's wastes?
As this planet's population of human beings keeps rising, and our per capita use
of the environment also increases, these are vital questions.
Obviously, the answers depend on the person's lifestyle. A Chinese peasant
farmer who lives on the equivalent of $80 a year needs less land than a
globe-trotting businessman with two homes and three cars, who squeaks by on a
quarter of a million dollars annually.
In their recent book Our Ecological Footprint: Reducing Human Impact on the
Earth, community and regional planners, Mathis Wackernagel and William Rees
calculated just how much land North Americans require. On average, each of us
needs between 10 and 12 acres of ecologically-productive land to provide for our
consumption.
With the Earth's current population, however, there are fewer than 4 acres of
this land per person. There's a serious problem here.
If everyone in the world used resources the way North Americans do, we would
need two to three additional planets as large and as bountiful as this one just
in order to supply the needs of those who are alive now.
Yet, the Earth's population grows by nearly 100 million people each year. And,
all over the planet, productive ecosystems and farms are being converted into
subdivisions, parking lots, industrial parks, shopping malls and highways - all
ecological wastelands. Meanwhile, the global communications juggernaut tries to
convince Chinese farmers and all those with tiny ecological footprints, to adopt
the automobile, fast and processed food, air conditioning, aluminum can and
hamburger habits which make our ecological footprints so enormous.
If we first recognize our connections to the land, and then how much land those
connections require, we might actually be able to create a more sustainable
future.
It's easy to appreciate the need for land to grow trees, grains and other foods,
and to graze animals. Yet these uses account for just a part of the land that
we require. More than half, or about six acres per North American, is necessary
to absorb the carbon dioxide released by our fossil fuel consumption, assuming
that atmospheric stability (to minimize climate change) is our goal.
Burning fossil fuels in power plants, vehicles and factories releases their
stored carbon as CO2. If this carbon dioxide isn't absorbed by green plants or
by the shell-forming organisms in tidal zones, it accumulates in the atmosphere,
where it has the potential to effect changes in the earth's climate.
If population and consumption keep growing as expected, by the middle of the
21st century we will need six to twelve more planets as large and as bountiful
as this one in order to prevent rapid deterioration of the environment.
But, since we are not likely to find even one more well-stocked planet any time
soon, what else can we do?
A simple answer, which is contrary to the major thrust of our culture, is to
consume less, and produce more of what we need ourselves, close to or at home.
Food produced in nearby organic gardens uses much less land than food grown
thousands of miles away which has to be processed, packaged, frozen, warehoused
and shipped before it is at all useful to our bodies.
Simple things like staying home, eating fewer animal products, drinking tap
water instead of packaged beverages, composting biodegradable wastes, using a
clothes line and planting trees are powerful antidotes to the rush toward
greater consumption and the huge ecological footprint that it produces.
The more we disconnect from the consumer culture and reconnect with our local
ecosystem, the better our chances are of finding a way to live sustainably on
this beautiful planet, the only one we've got.
This is Bill Duesing, Living on the Earth
C1996, Bill Duesing, Solar Farm Education, Box 135, Stevenson, CT 06491.
Bill and Suzanne Duesing operate the Old Solar Farm (raising NOFA/CT certified
organic vegetables) and Solar Farm Education (working on urban agriculture
projects in New Haven, Bridgeport, Hartford and Norwalk, CT). Their collection
of essays Living on the Earth: Eclectic Essays for a Sustainable and Joyful
Future is available from Bill Duesing, Box 135, Stevenson, CT 06491 for $14
postpaid. This essay first appeared on WSHU, public radio from Fairfield, CT.
New essays are posted weekly at http://www.wshu.org/duesing