ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT
Humanity needs what nature provides, but how
do we know how much we’re using and how much we have to use?
The Ecological Footprint has emerged as the
world’s premier measure of humanity’s demand on nature. It measures how much
land and water area a human population requires to produce the resource it
consumes and to absorb its wastes, using prevailing technology.
Our current global situation: Since the
mid 1980s, humanity has been in ecological overshoot with annual demand on
resources exceeding what Earth can regenerate each year.
It now takes the Earth one year and four
months to regenerate what we use in a year.
We maintain this overshoot by liquidating
the Earth’s resources. Overshoot is a vastly underestimated threat to human
well-being and the health of the planet, and one that is not adequately
addressed.
By measuring the Footprint of a
population—an individual, city, business, nation, or all of humanity—we can
assess our pressure on the planet, which helps us manage our ecological assets
more wisely and take personal and collective action in support of a world where
humanity lives within the Earth’s bounds.
Conceived in 1990 by Mathis Wackernagel and
William Rees at the
Ecological footprint analysis compares human
demand on nature with the biosphere's ability to regenerate resources and
provide services. It does this by assessing the biologically productive land
and marine area required to produce the resources a population consumes and
absorb the corresponding waste, using prevailing technology. Footprint values
at the end of a survey are categorized for Carbon, Food, Housing, and Goods and
Services as well as the total footprint number of Earths needed to sustain the
world's population at that level of consumption. This approach can also be applied
to an activity such as the manufacturing of a product or driving of a car. This
resource accounting is similar to life cycle analysis wherein the consumption
of energy, biomass (food, fiber), building material, water and other resources
are converted into a normalized measure of land area called 'global hectares' (gha).
CARBON- FOOTPRINT
A carbon footprint is “the total set
of GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions caused directly and indirectly by an
individual, organization, event or product” (UK Carbon Trust 2008). An
individual, nation or organization's carbon footprint is measured by
undertaking a GHG emissions assessment. Once the size of a carbon footprint is
known, a strategy can be devised to reduce it.
A
measure of the amount of carbon dioxide emitted through fossil fuel combustion.
A carbon footprint is often expressed as tons of carbon emitted on an annual
basis. ’
It
has become a widely used term and concept in the public debate on responsibility
and abatement action against the threat of global climate change. It had a
tremendous increase in public appearance over the last few months and the
media, the government and in the business world.
CANADIAN
TEEN ,DANIEL BURD DISCOVERS BACTERIA THAT DEGRADES PLASTIC
Daniel Burd, a 16-year-old student of
Waterloo Collegiate Institute has discovered a bacteria that degrades plastic.
This is an important breakthrough that has brought him many laurels.
To find out which bacteria are more
effective as biodegraders, he put together a bacterial culture medium by mixing
some household chemicals, tap water and yeast. He ground plastic bags into a
powder and added it to the medium along with some dirt. The mixture was placed
in a shaker at 30 degree for 3 months. Then he filtered out the remaining
powder, transfer the culture into 3 flasks and also prepared a flask of boiled
culture as the negative control. He placed strips of plastics cut out from bags
into these flasks and compared the weights of the plastic strips after 6 weeks.
He observed a 17% decrease, but that’s not good enough for him.
To identify the specific strain of bacteria
responsible for degrading the plastic, Daniel grew the microbes on agar plates
and found 4 different species. He did more tests using plastic strips and found
that only the second strain was able to break down the plastic significantly.
Growing the strain with the others respectively
indicated that the first strain and the second strain together resulted in 32%
weight loss in plastic strips. Daniel hypothesized that strain no. 1 helped
strain no. 2 reproduce. More tests revealed that the degrading species was
Sphingomonas bacteria and the helper was Pseudomonas.
He did more tests using different bacterial
concentrations, temperatures, and addition of sodium acetate as a carbon source
for the bacteria. He found that at 37 degrees, with the optimal concentration
and a little sodium acetate added, 43% degradation was achieved in 6 weeks.
Although he did not actually do the test, but the plastic strips should be
totally broken down in double that time. He also checked whether this could
work on a larger scale by testing whole plastic bags. It worked, too.
A researcher in
There should not be any problem applying
this method in the industry, all that is required includes a fermenter, a
bacterial growth medium, the bugs and the plastic bags. Since the bacteria also
produce heat during the process, little energy is needed to maintain the
optimal temperature. The system produces only water and carbon dioxide, in the
minuscular amount of 0.01% of the bacteria’s weight. If this works, it is a
huge step forward in solving the problem of “white pollution.”
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1.
http://www.ecologicalfootprint.com/favicon.ico
3.
http://www.nada.org/favicon.ico
4.
Ecological Footprint Calculator
5.
Carbon
Footprint Calculator