Mission of the Month: Nov 2008
How many worlds would it take?

The way we live – traveling, eating, staying warm in the winter – has a cost to the earth. But some of us use more resources to support our lifestyles than others. Some people tread lightly on the earth, and others use more than their share of what the earth has to offer us.

How many worlds we need to support ourselves if everyone on earth lived the way we do? There are a lot of factors to consider – the type of house we live in, the transportation we use and the kinds (and origins) of food we eat are the main factors.

As we think about this, a good starting point is the concept of "carrying capacity". Carrying capacity is the number of living things - plants as well as animals - that an area of land or water can support at any one time. This activity is a demonstration of how it works.

Activity 1: Coyote Carrying Capacity

How many coyotes can live on 100 acres of land? Try this on-site activity to understand the struggles of coyotes to sustain themselves in the wild. Go to activity.

Activity 3: Your Food

Thanksgiving Day, a big food holiday, is coming up. What is the role of food in your carbon footprint?

Think about the processes that go into producing your lunch, and perhaps come up with alternative lunches for your future. The Life Story of A Lunch activity was produced in Sonoma County, California, but you can fill in the name of your own county and work the same calculations. Go to activity.

Messing about with food (growing, producing, packaging, transporting, cooking) is responsible for 19% of our energy consumption, but it is just now becoming an important issue in the global warming discussion.

Like people, coyotes are omnivores: they eat both plants and animals. But unlike most people, coyotes “eat local”, and they eat organic and naturally occurring products (no transportation, processing, packaging or storage costs!). Very little energy is needed for their food. What about you? Could you eat like a coyote and lower your carbon footprint?

Eating local is in style! “Locavores” eat foods that have been produced within 100 miles of where they live. But many people don’t know that the real energy hog is not transportation, but food production. It takes a lot more energy to produce a pound of meat or seafood than it does to produce a pound of chicken, fish or eggs. That’s because raising cows requires a lot more room and energy than raising chickens or vegetables.

Switching to a totally local diet would save about as much as the carbon produced by driving about 1000 miles per year. But you can shrink your carbon footprint almost as much by switching from red meat and dairy to chicken, fish or eggs for one day per week – the equivalent to driving about 760 miles less per year. Going vegetarian diet one day per week is equivalent to driving 1160 miles less per year.

Check out the ways to shrink your carbon footprint by changing the way you eat:

Energy consumption isn’t the only issue in deciding what you will eat. Other factors we need to consider include taste, food safety, balanced diet, cost, supporting local businesses, food freshness, cultivation and harvesting methods, quantity and type of fertilizer and pesticides, water use, animal living conditions, how goods are transported. What else is important to you?

Would you like to know more?

Do food miles matter?
Food miles and relative climate impacts of food choices in the United States
Reducing energy inputs in the US food system
Big Foot

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