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What is an Ecological
Footprint? |
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It is a new tool to help measure
humanity’s use of nature and natural resources.
It is not simply the physical footprint of the
city itself, instead, it is the equivalent
area, in acres, of biologically productive land,
and of water that must be used exclusively to
produce all the resources that the city’s
residents consume, and to absorb all the
wastes that they put out, in one year.
This includes cropland, forests, and other
natural resources around the globe. |
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How is our Footprint
measured? |
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The City hired the nonprofit
organization Redefining Progress to establish a
baseline in 1990, and measure it again in the
year 2000, looking at these factors: land use,
electricity use by source, natural gas use,
gasoline and diesel use, transportation and
vehicles, roads, housing, food, products, waste
and recycling. They converted the measured
factors into productive-land-area equivalents,
and divided the area by the number of residents.
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How big is Santa
Monica’s Ecological Footprint now? |
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Our City
Footprint for the year 2000 is 2,747 square
miles. |
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How has Santa Monica’s
Footprint changed over 10 years? |
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Santa
Monica’s civic dedication to sustainability has
helped reduce our Footprint by 167 sq. miles, or
5.7%. Per resident, the Footprint dropped by ˝
acre, from 21.4 acres in 1990 to 20.9 in 2000.
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What factors caused the
changes? |
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Energy use tends to be the largest
component of any Footprint, with its greatest
downstream effect being the amount of waste
carbon dioxide emitted that has to be absorbed
by forests. Reductions in the use of natural gas
and diesel, and the City’s shift to geothermal
energy, made most of the difference. Increased
recycling rates also helped. |
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Why should we care?
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The Earth is finite. The total area of
biologically productive land, and total fresh
water sources, averages out to about 4.5 acres
per person as the “fair Earthshare.” But in
Santa Monica, our 2000 annual usage was 20.9
acres per-person. So, at well over four times
the global average, we are way beyond our
fair share, and still living beyond our means. |
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So are we doing well
enough? |
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Santa Monica is a recognized leader
in pursuing sustainability, and has taken
genuine steps to reduce our Footprint. But there
is much room for improvement. Increases in
electricity and gasoline use, and a boom in
built space, offset gains in the 1990s. |
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Who can make our EF even
smaller? |
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We all can. It will take the
efforts of government, businesses, and citizens—you—to
keep moving forward. Government can take the
lead by helping residents learn about making
enlightened choices of action, using indicators
like our Footprint to reveal areas offering the
most potential for progress. |
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What can we do to
improve it? |
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Make personal choices that help
and keep at it! See
Simple Things You Can Do
for
specific recommendations.
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