Introduction
The Earth is a closed ecosystem, meaning that once we use up the Earth's resources that's it. More resources will not be delivered, nor will more resources magically appear. The water that is here today is the same water that was present at the time God created the Earth, and it will be the same water future generations will use. God, in Genesis 1, says we are to be caretakers of this creation. As caretakers we need to be aware of the big issues like water pollution and deforestation, but we also need to be aware of the smaller details of caring for God's creation. Every day we make many small decisions that have an impact on the health of our Earth. The goal of this activity is to become aware of some of the ways we can impact our environment, both positively and negatively.

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Instructions: Choose the one selection in each category that best describes you or your household. Your score represents the approximate number of acres required to support your lifestyle. Our "fair share" is three acres per person (Earth's 18 billion acres of productive land divided by six billion people).

Analyzing the Results

If you've done the excerise in a group, a good discussion can center on the sharing of why one person might have the lowest score or how others might be able to get their score lower by changing one or two of their daily activities. The important idea to end the discussion on is that even our smallest daily activities can have an impact on the environment and that these add up to a big impact because of the number of people doing them each day. A good way to conclude the discussion on a positive note is to have each person share one change they can make to lessen their impact on the environment–or as a group pick one area that everyone can improve on.

Scoring System

The scoring system is an attempt to arrive at the approximate number of acres of the earth's productive capacity a person utilizes. According to the book Our Ecological Footprint, there are about 18 billion acres of productive forest, fields, and other areas available to support human consumption patterns. With 6 billion people on the earth this comes out to 3 acres per person. How does your point value compare to your "fair share" of 3 acres? The average U.S. citizen requires 10-12 acres of the earth's productive land to meet his/her consumption demands. As you can see, if all the world's poeple consumed at this rate, we'd need several more planets to provide for us!

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Shopping

There is no easy way to quantify the full range of our consumption. All total, U.S. citizens consume their weight in stuff (minerals, metals, food, forest products, energy, etc.) every day. Counting the number of shopping trips one makes is an attempt to approximate one's general consumption pattern.

Driving a passenger car (Source: http://www.epa.gov/oms/ann-emit.htm)

The EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) estimates that the average passenger vehicle in the US travels 12,500 miles per year on 550 gallons of imported gasoline. That is an average of 34 miles per day or 1.5 gallons of gas (about 22.5 miles per gallon). The average US car emits 0.8 pounds of carbon dioxide (greenhouse gas) per mile for a total of 10,000 pounds per year. Other gases such as hydrocarbons (urban ozone and smog), carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides (urban ozone and acid rain) are also emitted in much smaller quantities.

How many pounds of carbon dioxide are you emitting each day? If the temperatures are very hot or very cold the emissions may be higher.

One acre of rainforest absorbs 1000 pounds of carbon dioxide per year or about 2.75 pounds of carbon dioxide per day. How many acres of rainforest do you need each day? (1 mile=0.8 lbs. CO2)

Biking or Walking

If driving a car consumed only as much energy as a riding a bicycle, the car would get 700 miles per gallon!

Clothes Dryer

The average electric clothes dryer uses about 5000 watts or 5 kilowatts per load. Five kilowatts translates into about 0.14 gallons of gasoline. So if you dry 7 loads of wash per week you are using the equivalent of 1 gallon of gasoline, which is emitting 20 pounds of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Home Heating and Cooling (Source: Center for Applied Research)

According to the 1995 Environmental Almanac 11% of all the energy used in the US is for heating our homes. The biggest way to save heating and cooling energy is to reduce the amount of space being cooled or heated. Close vents or turn off thermostats in unused rooms. Adjust the thermostat if you are going to be away from home for several hours.

An average central heating system with floor vents uses 25,000 watts per hour or about 85,325 BTUs (British Thermal Units) or the equivalent of ¾ gallon of gasoline per hour which translates into about 13.5 pounds of carbon dioxide per hour.

An average central air conditioning system 4500 watts per hour, which equals about 2.5 pounds of carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere per hour. The cooler you keep your house the larger the number of pounds of carbon dioxide you are emitting each hour. The negative effect on the environment is compounded because our air conditioners tend to work the hardest during the heat of the day so we are emitting more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere when it is warmest and therefore, the negative impact is the largest.

The average window or wall air conditioning unit uses 1500 watts/hour or about 0.8 pounds of carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere per hour.

Insulating a home can reduce energy consumption by as much as 25%. Adjusting the thermostat up with cooling and down with heating can conserve anywhere between 5 and 20% of the total energy used.

Furnace and Air Conditioning

The Center for Applied Research estimates a savings of about 5% in total energy use if the furnace and air conditioner are serviced annually.

Windows facing east can be used advantageously to help warm up a house in the winter. If your windows don't face east or you want to keep the house from cooling off in the evening install thermal curtains and/or thermal windows.Windbreaks and shade trees can do a lot to help conserve on heating and cooling energy uses. Shading the air conditioner condenser can net another 5-10% savings on total energy use.

Lighting (Source: World Wildlife Fund)

Each light bulb is labeled with its wattage. If you have ten 100-watt light bulbs and they each burn for an hour you are using the equivalent of 1000 watts or 1 kilowatt (the unit used by electric companies). Think about the number of light bulbs you have in your house and the size wattage you usually buy. How many hours do you burn those lights? Try to come up with an approximate number of total watts used per day. Now take those same numbers (number of bulbs and number of hours) and use a bulb with less wattage (75 watts, 60 watts, 40 watts) and look at the savings in energy.

As light bulbs burn out, replace them with compact fluorescent light bulbs. They use one-fourth the energy of regular bulbs and keep half a ton of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere during their life span which is ten times longer. Also, choose light bulbs for their "lumens" (amount of light emitted) and not their wattage.

Recycling

Making aluminum from recycled cans used 90-95% less energy than making it from raw materials and reduces related air pollution by 95%. Recycling one 12 ounce pop can is equivalent to saving 6 ounces of gas or preventing about 8.5 pounds of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere.

While recycling is much better for the environment than using new raw materials, even recycling has harmful environmental impacts. Recycling takes energy, materials, money and time. It produces some air and water pollution, although not nearly as much as using new raw materials does. Recycling can help reduce resource use significantly but reducing demand and reusing can do even more good.

Bathing

The Center for Applied Research estimates that washing and bathing accounts for about 37% of the water used in our homes (US only). The average tub bath uses 30 gallons of water, while a shower with a regular shower head uses 8 gallons of water per minute, and a shower with a low flow shower head uses 4 gallons of water per minute. In terms of energy usage, it is heating water that consumes most of the energy used in bathing. A water heater can consume 20 percent of all the energy used in a household.

Toilet flushing

The Center for Applied Research estimates that toilet flushing accounts for about 40% of the water used in our homes. By replacing an old 6 gallon per flush toilet with a new 1.5 gallon per flush you can save 75% of the water used and therefore, treated by the water department.

Putting a one-quart jar in the tank saves a quart of water per flush–or four gallons a day in a 16-flush household!

Eating

Think about your buying habits. Do you consciously choose to buy locally grown or raised products? It is estimated that on average, food in North America is transported 1000 miles before it is eaten.

What we eat also can impact the environment. Patronize restaurants that use "reuseable" tableware. Consider the environmental cost of transportation of food from other regions o the world. In addition, the FDA is concerned about the amount of DDT and other carcinogenic chemicals found on grocery store produce. The use of DDT was outlawed several decades ago in the US but US chemical companies still produce it and sell it to other countries. Growing your own food or buying locally produced food is a good environmental choice.

Be a wise consumer with respect to fish and seafood. Avoid over-exploited stocks such as Atlantic swordfish, Atlantic salmon and shark.

Trash

The amount of trash and the type of trash we set out each week says a lot about our lifestyles. There are many ways we can decrease the amount of weekly trash. These include doing more recycling, refusing to buy products with large amounts of packaging, buying in larger containers, buying only recyclable containers and reusing non-recyclable containers.

As landfills fill up, states are less willing to accept someone else's trash, even for a price! To decrease the amount of trash going into landfills, some cities have started incinerating their trash, which puts pollutants and toxic particles into the air and eventually even into our waters.

The average U.S. citizen creates one ton of municipal waste per year.

Yard maintenance

Newer mowers release fewer pollutants to the atmosphere, and the mulching mowers chop the grass up into smaller bits so that the organic substances in the grass clippings can break down and return to the soil faster.

The time of day is also an important factor to take into consideration. Pollutants like carbon dioxide are more harmful in a warmer atmosphere, therefore, do more damage if you mow in the hottest part of the day rather than early morning or late afternoon. Additionally, the chemicals released by the cut grass have a higher negative impact on a warm atmosphere.

Planting shrubs, flowers, and trees can help absorb some of the extra carbon dioxide released while mowing.

Environmental Education

Attitude is a huge factor when considering our daily impact on the environment. If we are concerned and aware then we will make decisions that can be less harmful to the environment. We can increase our positive impact on the environment by sharing our concerns with others. Protecting our environment will be a grass roots operation–each of us can make a small difference and the sum of our collective small differences will equal a big difference.