A BIG Footprint
Just took the ecological quiz over at My Footprint.org.

I flunked pretty badly. I am just a normal American who lives in the Upper Midwest (hence more energy costs) in suburbia (no homegrown foods) in a normal house (too much for only 2 people) who drives 36 miles round-trip to work each day (even in a car that can get 25 - 30 mpg). In short I need more than 30 acres to sustain my lifestyle. And here is the cruncher, as they put it on their website:

IF EVERYONE LIVED LIKE YOU, WE WOULD NEED 7.4 PLANETS.

I have always considered myself as ecologically conscious. I was there "celebrating" the first Earth Day in 1970. I got rid of a Ford Explorer because it used too much gas. Yet most of my "acreage" (79%) goes to support shelter and goods/services. 6% supports my "mobility" and 15% my food.

It is humbling and scary to think that I am basically a normal, average American. Just to think about being more ecologically "green" would be a MAJOR action on my part. It is part of our whole infrastructure of culture and life that makes all of us in the USA so ecologically greedy.

It makes one wonder if there is any answer to the problem short of very radical, even socially upending actions worldwide? What are we leaving for the next generations?

This is taking care of God's world?