Ecological Footprint Data

Reduction Plans:

1) I will reduce my consumption of meat products, by having 2 meatless days a week.

2) I will do my best to purchase produce and meat products from local, sustainable businesses.

3) I will carpool, bus or bike to the river during the salmon runs.

After completing my ecological footprint quiz, I discovered that, if the global population undertook my lifestyle, we would need 3.7 Earths to support life and provide sufficient resources. This is pretty disheartening. I try and do my best to live a sustainable lifestyle, but it is still too harsh on this planet. I started thinking about how I could reduce my impact given the data I received from the quiz and came up with the reduction plans listed above. I definitely eat too much meat and purchase too many groceries associated with high transportation and packaging costs. With that, I am going to reduce my meat consumption to five days a week and purchase more locally-sourced food from the Coop and farmer's market. My final reduction commitment has to do with my severe addiction to fly fishing. Salmon are pushing their way into the river systems at the moment and I plan on going out to the Nooksack or Skagit most weekends through the rest of the year to fish. I am going to try and carpool every time I go out with members of the fly fishing club at Western or my roommates. Hopefully, these reductions will help eliminate some of my impact on this planet. Talk to me in class if you want to fish!

Here's a bonus picture of a nice bull trout I got last

weekend. Caught and safely released!