If we all had an ecological footprint of 1.7 would we still have global warming?
Answer:
In a word - yes. In a few more words - there would be a slight reduction in global warming but not by a significant amount (assuming you've measured ecological footprint in global hectares and not acres).
In a lot more words -
The size of a persons ecological footprint isn't necessarily linked to their contribution to global warming so this makes any comparisions difficult.
What we can do is to link the size of a persons ecological footprint to the size of their contribution to global warming and see where that gets us.
If you're using global hectares:
1.7 is 6% below the overall average of 1.8, if each persons contribution to global warming were reduced by 6% then there would be a 7% reduction in global warming.
If you're using global acres:
1.7 is 61% below the overall average of 4.4, if each persons contribution to global warming were reduced by 61% then there would be a 68% reduction in global warming.
To totally eliminate anthropogenic (manmade) global warming would require an ecological footprint of 0.186 global hectares (0.460 global acres).
If we didnt have global warming we would all be dead.
Humanity has not got a monopoly on Global warming
we affect it but we are not the sole cause
so irrespective of our footprints ,we will still be in trouble
Try looking at these sites and see if you get a different opinion;
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/...
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/su...
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=...
It has not yet been credibly established that man is contributing in ANY way to the supposed global warming phenomenon. I would encourage you to google this and take an honest look at the controversy:
http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&h...
Tom
Al gore's footprint is about 30 and you don't see him slow down his fuel consumption.
Face it, "man-made global warming" has become a political issue that has no basis in scientific fact.
Some of the answers in this section make me wonder just what is being taught in school these days. Not science and math, that's for sure.
Probably. Global warming is complex. Whatever our "footprint", there is the poisoning of phytoplankton in the oceans and clear cutting tropical rainforests. Just those 2 things have a huge impact on tying up carbon and releasing oxygen. Then too a lot, we don't know how much, of this cycle is natural. It's happened before. For sure we are contributing our part.
However- cut down your personal dependence on plastics, fossil fuels, and use of electricty. What is absolutey certain is that fossil carbon (oil and coal) is running out and someday we will have to convert to a simpler way of living and the shock will be terrible for people who are now use to it.
It's better to change at your own rate than be forced to it.
Our energy footprint is not subject to area constraints. It is a theoretical area of forest that would be needed to sequester the excess carbon (as carbon dioxide, CO2) that is being added to the atmosphere by the burning of fossil fuels to generate energy for travel, heating, lighting, manufacturing, etc. If we fail to sequester the excess, it will build up in the atmosphere and create the potential for a possibly catastrophic rate of global warming or other environmental stress. To evaluate sustainability, we must decouple the real demands on Earth generated by our food, wood products and degraded land needs from the theoretical demands generated by burning fossil fuels. They reflect different kinds of sustainability problems and are not cumulative.
In order to understand why there is a problem with sustainability of our lifestyle, we need to think globally. Any good almanac or encyclopedia will provide information about the areas of the Earth that are in any way ecologically available. When areas of true desert, and those covered by water or permanent ice are eliminated, this ecologically available land area, according to my almanac source, is slightly less than 29,000,000,000 (billion) acres. A significant part of this area, such as tundra, semi-arid regions, areas above timberline, and swamplands is not practically accessible for our food, wood products and land degradation demands. United Nations estimates of areas of arable land, cropland, and pasture (FAO, 1995) and U. S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates of world forest cover (Brown et al., 1996) indicate that there are only about 22 billion acres of usable land. This sounds like a lot, but there are 6 billion people on Earth today and most reasonable projections conclude there will be about 10 billion people on Earth by 2050. Because our concern is for a sustainable future, we need to think in terms of these 10 billion rather than today. Thus, by 2050, the ecologically usable surface of the Earth will allow an average total footprint of slightly more than 2 acres per person. This number is fairly well constrained because the usable land area on Earth is not going to change on a human time scale, and population will probably not be significantly less than the projected 10 billion persons.
As long as there are greedy politicians like Al Gore looking to make a buck off it there will be.
Yes- Global warming is a solar and galactic problem not just some guy eating toasted marshmallows
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