Sustainability: The Current Buzz Word

"In order to approximate a sustainable society, we need to describe a system of commerce and production in which each and every act is inherently sustainable and restorative." - Paul Hawken ["A Declaration of Sustainability", The Utne Reader, Sept/Oct 1993]

"But we're stuck. Even environmentalists are stuck. And what we're stuck on is our belief (or hope) that western market capitalism can somehow be greened or "eco'd" enough to play a positive role in reversing climate change. As Curtis White ... explains, 'the so-called greening of corporate America is not as much about the desire to protect nature as it is about the desire to protect capitalism itself. Environmentalists are, on the whole, educated and successful people, many of whom have prospered within corporate capitalism. They're not against it. They simply seek to establish a balance between the needs of the economy (as they blandly put it) and the needs of the natural world.' This is another way of saying 'we want our cake and we want to eat it, too.' And it just is not possible." - Susan Meeker-Lowry ["Eating Cake". Conway Daily Sun, April 25, 2007]

Sustainability! Companies are promoting their role in it. Politicians are talking about it. Communities are trying to do it. Sustainability is the new buzzword. But what does it really mean? Apparently different things to different groups, or, perhaps, whatever the speaker chooses it to mean. I'm pretty sure that almost no one really understands what it will take for human society to become fully sustainable. Everyone knows that our consumption of "natural resources" cannot go on indefinitely but few of us are willing to lower our rate of that consumption. Sustainability really means changing the system to the point where "use up" or "consume" are no longer useful terms.

Human societies have been running out of "natural resources" for millennia. Cultures have foundered as population growth and climate changes combine to reduce agricultural and forest productivity. In America Europeans moved west through the 18th and 19th centuries as food and wood production in the east decreased. In 1864 George Perkins Marsh in "Man and Nature" thoroughly documented extinction of species and depletion of forests and water worldwide.

Sustainability rose toward the top of the environmentalist agenda around Earth Day 1970. Kenneth Boulding [1966. The Economics of the Coming Spaceship Earth. Sixth Resources for the Future Forum on Environmental Quality in a Growing Economy, Washington, D.C.] wrote about the difference between a "cowboy economy" with unlimited resources and a "spaceship economy" of finite resources. Now, over 40 years later, humanity remains deeply committed to the cowboy economy, in which "production, consumption, throughput, and the GNP [are] sufficient and adequate measure of economic success". Garrett Hardin wrote a seminal article titled "The Tragedy of the Commons" [Science 162:1243-1248]. He used a metaphor of individual rights to common pasture in the 18th century; whoever grazes the most cows on the common gets the most milk. When individuals all have free rights to a common resource, it is in each person's best interest to maximize their own use of that resource. So it inevitably gets overused; this is the tragedy of the commons. At the same time, Paul Ehrlich and John Holdren [Science 171:1212-1217] defined human impact on Earth as Population x Affluence x Technology. Obviously all three are increasing rapidly, and conversely, reduction of any one will reduce human impact proportionally. Meadows et al., in "Limits to Growth" ran computer models of Earth's resources and economy into the future, showing that crashes of P, A, and T were very likely within 100 years. Their work was extremely controversial, but they found no reason to change their basic conclusions in "Limits to Growth: The 30-year Update", published in 2004. The 1973 sustainability classic, E. F. Schumacher's "Small Is Beautiful" spawned the Schumacher Society to help create sustainable local economies.

Although it has been thirty years since the issue of sustainability was clearly stated and understood, it took the more recent energy/climate crisis to make it front-page news. Optimists assume that we can have sustainability within a relatively unchanged and still growing technology; they believe that economics of capitalistic free markets will encourage and produce sustainability through new energy technologies and through corporate choices. On a more thoughtful level, a program called The Natural Step (see below) encourages corporations to voluntarily develop a "deep" sustainability based on natural laws. A less optimistic view requires forcing changes in corporate behavior by regulation and taxes, or by altering economic demand, but still within the current structure. Economic pessimists feel that the corporate/capitalist system is broken and want to reduce corporate power or even completely change the global culture. Estimates of Earth's "carrying capacity" and the human "ecological footprint" (see below) imply that major changes are required if all humans are to live decently and all species are to live and evolve.

Now sustainability initiatives abound, including local activist groups, town and city governments, university offices of sustainability, and changes in business behavior. A World Institute for a Sustainable Humanity supports numerous projects around the world that foster sustainability, self-reliance, and reduction of poverty and environmental destruction. One AWISH effort, the Global Living Project on a farm in Vermont, offers "educational experiences that incorporate sustainability, voluntary simplicity, bioregionalism, organic agriculture, deep ecology, and earth-centered spirituality."

Myths of Sustained Yield and Multiple Use

As a forestry student in college in the 1950's I was introduced to the concept of "sustained yield". Professional foresters had preached since the 19th century that wood products could be removed from forests indefinitely as long as the forests were appropriately managed. Foresters were taught both how to determine the growth rate of forests and that harvest removal over time and area should not exceed this growth rate; this was the "sustained yield" value. Although fine in concept, the underlying assumption required that current or previous growth rates would continue indefinitely. There was no consideration of growth reduction by acid precipitation, by nutrient depletion from harvest removal and leaching, by insect or disease outbreaks, by fire, windstorm, or global warming, by invasive exotics, and by loss of diversity. This supposed sustained yield forestry also failed to account for economic changes that produced widespread sale of company lands and mills and consequent abandonment of sustained yield plans. Much the same results have occurred with other renewable "natural resources" such as water, soil and agriculture, healthy air, fish, and game. In practice, sustained yield proves to be very elusive.

Part of the problem may be human conceit in thinking that we can reorganize nature for our own benefit. Samuel Hays in "Wars in the Woods", describes the long battle between "commodity forestry" and "ecological forestry". Commodity forestry develops agroforests with planting, fire suppression, pesticides, fertilization, and genetic selection. Agroforestry corporations jump on the sustainability bandwagon with commercials about sustainable timber harvesting, making it sound like a new idea, though it really is an old concept that has never been, and may never be, fully realized. Ecological forestry works with forests as natural systems, attempting not to remove more than nature can provide. But this too may be an unachievable human hope (see the Conservation Biology chapter).

Another useful concept from forestry is "multiple use". The U.S. Forest Service, my career employer, promotes the five primary uses of forest land as wood, water, wildlife, recreation, and range (or grazing). The multiple use concept argues that a forest of almost any size can provide all of these "products" simultaneously if the forest is just managed properly. The concept includes an anthropocentric expectation that an ecosystem can be all things to all people, which unfortunately just isn't true. So, in practice, furious battles continue over which use or product should dominate where: timber versus recreation, motorized vehicles versus hikers, log extraction versus watershed protection, clearcutting versus aesthetics, wildlife versus humans, oil versus sanctuaries, ski areas versus whomever, grazing versus everybody else, and mining trumps everything since 1872, except, of course, fire. The noisy political history of forest land use is unending, indicating that multiple use is a cornucopian pie in the sky. It's Hardin's Tragedy of the Commons; the one with the most political clout gets most of the supposedly communal ecosystem services.

Recognition that multiple use is not working has driven forest management recently toward what is effectively forest land zoning. Landowners post "No Trespassing" signs to keep out hunters, hikers, fishers, and ATVs. Large areas of public lands are established as "wilderness" where human activities are very restricted (except where mineral extraction trumps). Trails are specifically designated for foot-travel, for horses, for ATVs, or for snowmobiles. Municipal watersheds are designated as protected. States own and manage game lands. So many uses and users for too little undeveloped land - it sounds like overpopulation to me.

Definitions of Sustainability

"Sustainable development" has taken its place. Its meaning depends on how "development" is defined and we all know there is wide disagreement on that. The concept is a hopeful one, with the implication that it should be continually possible to improve the lot of the vast numbers of people who are not getting a fair share of Earth's riches. The methods for doing sustainable development are widely debated. Affluent Western culture believes that lending government money to build dams and highways and allowing corporations to build MacDonalds and sell Coca-Cola in poor countries fills the bill (see the Globalization chapter). Ecoshifters at the other extreme might see sustainable development in terms of providing support for small, local businesses and agriculture, and providing encouragement and means for limiting population growth.

"Smart growth" implies either that growth is a good thing as long as we do it smartly, or that it is inevitable so we need to do it smartly. Either way it contains an assumption that "we" (whoever is speaking) know how to do it right. Given the forestry experience with "sustained yield" and "multiple use" I have serious doubts. A more realistic assumption in an Ecoshift context is that we do NOT know how to do "growth" right any more than we know how to "manage" ecosystems (see the Conservation Biology chapter). For a good read that is somewhere between these extremes, see Eben Fodor's "Better, Not Bigger" on how communities have slowed and even stopped rampant development.

A "sustainable community" has been defined as a community that "meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs". But this definition raises the question of who defines "needs", and invites "my present needs are greater (more) than your future needs".

A "steady-state economy" may have the right implications. It gets rid of "growth" and "development". In the context of a finite Earth it is not cornucopian but recognizes limits. A steady state is the only truly sustainable condition in the long run. This does not mean that the world's economic system would be completely unchanging. There is no true steady state in natural systems; they change gradually on average and greatly in certain places at certain times. Ecologists talk of a "shifting mosaic steady state". On a large spatial and temporal scale a system can be stable, but change can be frequent in any small part of the system. Local economies can grow and shrink while still maintaining a constant average.

Donald Mann, the founder and President of Negative Population Growth defines "sustainability" as "management of environmental and resource systems so that their ability to support future generations is not diminished". I like this because it doesn't say anything about present needs. This definition requires a steady state and probably a much smaller human population. How far into the future is left undefined. Suffice it to say that very few people really consider "for millennia" when using the word "sustainability". Herman Daly may say more along the lines of this definition in "Beyond Growth" (note: he calls the term "sustainable development" "dangerously vague" although he uses it in his title).

Even Mann's reasonable definition is still anthropocentric; it is "management", "environmental", "resource", and "future [human] generations". Motivation to protect the Earth solely for the future of humanity can be called anthropocentric sustainability. Motivation to protect the Earth for the future of all creation and for the rights of the millions of other species to exist and evolve without human interference constitutes ecocentric sustainability. Each individual concerned with sustainability and each sustainable action lies somewhere on a continuum between these two extremes. Given that "sustainability" means different things to different people, let's plow on into some of the actions being carried out in its name.

Technofixes

Ceres, Certification, and Greenwash

"Protection of the Biosphere - We will reduce and make continual progress toward eliminating the release of any substance that may cause environmental damage to the air, water, or the earth or its inhabitants. We will safeguard all habitats affected by our operations and will protect open spaces and wilderness, while preserving biodiversity.

Sustainable Use of Natural Resources - We will make sustainable use of renewable natural resources, such as water, soils and forests. We will conserve non-renewable natural resources through efficient use and careful planning.

Reduction and Disposal of Wastes - We will reduce and where possible eliminate waste through source reduction and recycling. All waste will be handled and disposed of through safe and responsible methods.

Energy Conservation - We will conserve energy and improve the energy efficiency of our internal operations and of the goods and services we sell. We will make every effort to use environmentally safe and sustainable energy sources.

Risk Reduction - We will strive to minimize the environmental, health and safety risks to our employees and the communities in which we operate through safe technologies, facilities and operating procedures, and by being prepared for emergencies.

Safe Products and Services - We will reduce and where possible eliminate the use, manufacture or sale of products and services that cause environmental damage or health or safety hazards. We will inform our customers of the environmental impacts of our products or services and try to correct unsafe use.

Environmental Restoration - We will promptly and responsibly correct conditions we have caused that endanger health, safety or the environment. To the extent feasible, we will redress injuries we have caused to persons or damage we have caused to the environment and will restore the environment.

Informing the Public - We will inform in a timely manner everyone who may be affected by conditions caused by our company that might endanger health, safety or the environment. We will regularly seek advice and counsel through dialogue with persons in communities near our facilities. We will not take any action against employees for reporting dangerous incidents or conditions to management or to appropriate authorities.

Management Commitment - We will implement these Principles and sustain a process that ensures that the Board of Directors and Chief Executive Officer are fully informed about pertinent environmental issues and are fully responsible for environmental policy. In selecting our Board of Directors, we will consider demonstrated environmental commitment as a factor.

Audits and Reports - We will conduct an annual self-evaluation of our progress in implementing these Principles. We will support the timely creation of generally accepted environmental audit procedures. We will annually complete the Ceres Report, which will be made available to the public. "

The list of Ceres companies as of June 2007 is pretty interesting: APS, Aspen Skiing Company, Aveda, Bank of America, Baxter International, Ben and Jerry's Homemade, Blue Wave Strategies LLC, The Body Shop International, Catholic Healthcare West, The Coca-Cola Company, Consolidated Edison, Dell Inc., Eileen Fisher, First Environment, Ford Motor Company, General Mills, General Motors, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Inc., Green Mountain Energy Company, Green Mountain Power Corporation, Hardwood Products Company, Interface Inc., ITT Industries, Louisville & Jefferson County Metropolitan Sewer District, McDonald's Corporation, National Grid USA, Nike, Northeast Utilities, PG&E Corporation, Plan A, PPL Corporation, Seventh Generation, State Street, Sun Microsystems, Sunoco Inc, Timberland, Time Warner Inc., Vancouver City Savings Credit Union, Wainwright Bank & Trust Company, and YSI Incorporated. This list includes both global megacorporations and small, truly green companies. I have more to say in the next chapter on Socially-Responsible Investing.

Certification programs are another device to encourage voluntary sustainability efforts by businesses. Global Exchange certifies coffee, chocolate, and other products as "Fair Trade" when the grower or producer has been paid a fair price, may receive credit at fair interest, and may obtain technical assistance, such as converting to organic growing. "Fair trade" should not be confused with "free trade", which, as the goal of corporate globalization, means unrestricted trade with corporations setting the rules. In the wood and paper industry there are at least two major certifiers. The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) has the best reputation among greens. It is relatively independent of industry, prohibits use of genetically-modified trees, avoids plantations, and monitors production from areas of high conservation value. The Sustainable Forest Initiative (SFI), on the other hand, is a certification program of the American Forest and Paper Association, which is clearly industry-controlled. This raises the question of who will police the police. The forest industry in particular has a long history of unenforced regulations and lip-service to standards.

This further raises the question of "greenwash". Just because a product or company says it is green doesn't mean it really is! Many corporations are touting their products as green or eco-efficient or sustainable when they are not. For instance, paper can be labeled "recycled" when it uses only cutting scraps from the original manufacturing paper process. Look for the "post-consumer" percentage to see how much of the paper has actually been recycled by the hands of users. Watch out for commercials showing what great efforts a company is making; these efforts may only affect a tiny fraction of their multi-billion dollar business. Auto manufacturers tout their hybrid SUVs, which raise their gas mileage from a miserable 15 mpg to a still bad 20 mpg. "Green" tool and gift companies sell things that do little except contribute to our throw-away society. Obviously I'm a real skeptic when it comes to corporations advertising their social responsibilities.

The Natural Step

Way back, shortly after the first Earth Day, Barry Commoner, in "The Closing Circle", defined four laws of ecology:

1. The First Law of Ecology: Everything is connected to everything else.
2. The Second Law of Ecology: Everything must go somewhere.
3. The Third Law of Ecology: Nature knows best.
4. The Fourth Law of Ecology: There is no such thing as a free lunch.

Swedish M.D. Karl-Henrik Robert has effectively restated Commoner's laws in four principles called The Natural Step with the goal of encouraging businesses to change their practices. The Natural Step is being adopted by enlightened corporations; see "The Natural Step for Business" by Nattrass and Altomore. Here are the four basic principles:

1. Substances from the Earth's crust can not systematically increase in the biosphere.
2. Substances produced by society can not systematically increase in the biosphere.
3. The physical basis for the productivity and diversity of nature must not be systematically deteriorated.
4. In order to meet the previous three system conditions, there must be a fair and efficient use of resources to meet human needs.

The first principle says that we can't keep mining stuff from below Earth's surface and moving it into living organisms and the atmosphere. This refers to such things as carbon, sulfur, and toxic metals. The second principle says we can't keep introducing new materials to Earth's system, materials like DDT, CFCs, and PVC. The third principle says we have to stop destroying ecosystems like productive soils, forests, fisheries, and grazing land, not only for humans but for all of life. The fourth principle says that we cannot meet the first three if we continue to have gross inequalities in allocation to different sectors of human society. These principles are often called requirements, because they are absolutes in the long run. Humanity MUST meet these requirements or we cannot survive as a world society. Because the absoluteness of at least the first three can be demonstrated logically, even to corporate executives, The Natural Step has had considerable impact in changing corporate behavior.

Regulation and Taxes

Tradable emission allowances allow corporations to buy and sell rights to emit specified amounts of pollutants (see the Energy chapter). The federal government allocates an emission allowance to each company each year. If the company does not need all its allowance because it built or cleaned up a plant, it can sell what it doesn't need to a company that would otherwise exceed its allowance. The second company in effect buys a right to continue polluting. Or, a green organization can buy allowances and "retire" them, thus reducing the total amount of pollution. A company gets incentive to clean up its act because it can then sell its unused allowances. The government then gradually reduces the total allowances. In the U.S. Clean Air Act of 1990 this system replaced strict emission limits for SO₂, which suffered from inadequate monitoring and enforcement by the individual states. This cap and trade system has actually worked to reduce sulfur emission. For greenhouse gases, especially CO₂, Europe has a mandatory system in place, but the U.S. does not (yet).

On a different scale, but the same in principle, is "pay by the bag" trash disposal. This is buying a right to dump a certain volume of waste. There is incentive to reduce the amount of waste if the price is high enough. On the other hand, the wealthy still can afford to dump all they want, just as they will be least affected by rising oil prices. Many "transfer stations" (formerly dumps) charge additional fees for various kinds of problem waste. Paying for dumping rights is a form of taxation.

In his classic book "The Ecology of Commerce" Paul Hawken takes the tax concept much farther by proposing taxes on all kinds of environmental impacts. He proposes replacement taxes on durable goods, taxes on mineral consumption, taxes on farmland destruction ("development") and so on. In principle we should tax consumption, not income. This clearly would require great changes in our current taxation system, but beginnings are already in place such as the puny carbon tax on fossil fuel consumption.

Another step on the way to taxing adverse impacts would be to eliminate government subsidies for such things as transportation, logging/grazing, agriculture, mining, and industrial development. In each of these areas the general taxpayer contributes funds that directly and adversely affect Earth's systems.

My high school classmate Robert Repetto, formerly of World Resources Institute, says "If we can enact policies that adjust prices so that they more accurately reflect all the costs associated with producing a particular pollutant or using a particular resource then society will make better decisions." But this requires economic valuation of such things as human health and even life and of other species' health and even existence. How much should Monsanto pay for each life lost at Bhopal? Would we have wiped out a species (Pacific yew) in order to save some human lives from cancer using the drug Taxol? (The question is moot now that taxol is synthesized.) How do we determine costs of aesthetics, loss of species, and ecosystem degradation? We cannot do future discounting for irreversible processes, even though such discounting is standard economics now. A variety of methods have been proposed to evaluate and include "true costs". Geoffrey Heal's "Nature and the Market Place" and David Korten's "The Post-Corporate World" may have more on this. Much of the rest of ECOSHIFT describes why I do not believe that a purely economic approach can solve the problems of human impact on Earth. Changing economics is necessary but not sufficient.

Social activists seem to divide into two camps regarding how to fix problems such as adverse impacts on Earth and inequities between rich and poor. Some believe that the world economic system just needs to be fixed, as by overthrowing a dictator in Iraq, redistributing food to famine areas, or tinkering with taxes and regulation. Others feel it is the capitalist system itself that creates problems and that it should be overthrown, or decentralized by giving "power to the people". Winona LaDuke says:

"We must ... charge ourselves with curbing the rights of corporations and special interests, transforming the legal institutions of the United States back toward the preservation of the commons, and preserving everyone's rights, not just those of the economically privileged." ["The Seventh Generation: Rethinking the Constitution", Wild Earth, Winter 1999/2000, p. 21-23].

Reducing Demand

Co-op America is perhaps the leading organization devoted to the principle of changing human demand. Its various publications encourage a wide variety of ways to reduce impact on Earth, to encourage social justice, and to change corporate behavior. Its Green Pages list thousands of green products. My one complaint about Co-op America is the amount of paper they send me asking for support of its various campaigns.

The Center for a New American Dream tries to reduce and shift North American consumption while fostering opportunities for people to lead more secure and fulfilling lives. It helps individuals, communities, and businesses establish sustainable practices that will ensure a healthy planet for future generations. Their buying guide has comments and links to sources for a large number of product categories; this is a very rich source of buying information. Development of local green buying lists is a project of New American Dream. Near me, Global Awareness, Local Action of Wolfeboro NH was one of the first five places to take on this project of surveying local stores in different categories about their principles and practices. Their final result is a "Resource Guide for Buying Wisely in Wolfeboro".

The Council on Economic Priorities published an annual "Shopping for a Better World" from 1988 to 2000. This guide rated corporations for working conditions, environmental impacts, and military involvement. CEP played a major role in getting businesses to improve their practices, but apparently is now inactive. However the web site Shopping for a Better World promises a 2009 revision.

One more book and three more web sites will have to represent the hundreds of information sources available about making sustainable choices. "The Consumer's Guide to Effective Environmental Choices" by Brower and Leon discusses what actions are really effective and what are not. The Business Alliance for Local Living Economies is a large organization for local businesses wanting to become more sustainable. It began as a Philadelphia restaurant seeking to use only locally-produced or fair trade food, and now includes over 50 local business networks. BALLE works to unite locally-owned businesses into "a Living Economy [that] ensures that economic power resides locally, sustaining healthy community life and natural life as well as long-term economic viability." Shop for America lists products that are made in the United States. The Low Impact Living web site is one of a growing number of sites on how to reduce your personal impact.

Duane Elgin has said, "The character of a society is the cumulative result of countless small actions, day in and day out, of millions of people." As a reminder that the purchasing choices you make every day do make a difference, I've developed a "refrigerator reminder" poster called "Voting For the Future of the Earth". You can download it as a printable PDF file from http://www.ecoshift.net. This poster encourages you to be joyful in your spending decisions, to feel powerful, and to be rewarded.

Carrying Capacity and Ecological Footprint

"Humans are part of nature, too. We have always diverted part of the earth's great cycles for our purposes and we always will. What is required of us is not to go away or do nothing, but to take a reasonable, sustainable amount, doing as little collateral damage as possible and returning our wastes in a way that nature can handle. To do that, we need to use our science, our heads, and our sense of justice to avoid stealing nature's bounty from each other and from the future." - Donella H. Meadows [Timeline, March/April 1995, p. 9].

What then is a reasonable sustainable amount? Can we have normal, healthy ecosystems on Earth as well as a sizable human population? How much can we take from natural systems and Earth without impinging on future generations of humans and other life-forms?

The question "What is the carrying capacity of Earth?" dates back to the time of Malthus. The answer almost always consists of an estimate of how large a human population the Earth can feed. But this anthropocentric concept gives little consideration to the quality of human life and none at all to the existence of other species. William R. Catton Jr. ["What Have We Done to Carrying Capacity?". Wild Earth, Winter 1997/98, p.64-70] gives two definitions:

1. "carrying capacity is the maximum population of a given species that a particular environment can support indefinitely (i.e. without habitat damage)" and
2. "carrying capacity is the maximum human population equipped with a given assortment of technology and a given pattern of organization that a particular environment can support indefinitely"

In 1996 "Our Ecological Footprint" by Mathis Wackernagel and William Rees quantified the area of Earth's land surface required to support a single human at a given level of lifestyle. Their approach and methods for ecological footprint analysis have become widely used. Calculations show that an average American requires between 12 and 24 acres of land surface to provide all the energy and materials consumed and to absorb the wastes discharged by that individual. This area can be divided into roughly equal fourths for food, housing, transportation, and consumer goods. But there are only 5 productive acres per person actually available on Earth. The bottom line, which is now generally agreed upon, is that BETWEEN THREE AND SIX EARTHS would be required to sustainably support all humans at the current consumer level of the average American. Earth is way overpopulated by humans unless most of us live with what you and I would consider an unacceptably poor quality of life.

Clearly achieving the "American Dream" is impossible for most people on Earth.

Ecological footprint analysis will always be an approximation, with differences in methods giving the range of values above; but both data and methods are improving continually. The land areas required for transportation, housing, industry, and production of food, wood, and paper for each individual can be calculated relatively easily. The relation of energy consumption to land area is more complicated and controversial. Ecological footprint analysis assumes that truly sustainable energy can only be produced by photosynthesis in natural systems. As described in the Energy chapter, natural ecosystems convert impinging solar energy into chemical or biomass energy with an efficiency of 1-2%. Thus productivity of vegetation provides values for energy footprints.

Methods and data used for ecological footprint analysis continue to improve. Changes suggested by Jason Venetoulis and John Talberth in "Refining the Ecological Footprint" have been incorporated into a personal footprint questionnaire at Redefining Progress. In spite of all my endeavors I still get 4.9 Earths needed for all Earth's humans to live my lifestyle. This shows the triviality of most American efforts to reduce consumption and footprint, and the necessity for significant reduction of human population to allow a satisfactory life for everyone. Further discussion of ecological footprinting and a very simple footprint calculator can be found at Best Foot Forward.

Although not specifically footprint analysis, "Earth Score", by Donald Lotter provides another questionnaire to monitor your personal impact on Earth. It assigns both negative Impact points and positive Action points for your activities, with appropriate weightings. I like this because it compares, for instance, the impact of your level of recycling with your level of having children, and shows where you can improve your practices. A similar questionnaire available on the web is the "Living More Lightly Profile" in Chapter 5 of the book at the Institute for Earth Education.

The personal footprint analysis at Redefining Progress poses in its "Comments" section the questions "What about population?" and "What about other species?". Response to the first shows that one-child families successfully reduce population. The second question allows a percentage of the planet for other species; I choose 50%. My ecocentric ethos says that we humans should use only half the land surface of Earth for our own sustenance, and should leave the other half truly wild so that other species can live their lives and evolve without human interference (see the Conservation Biology chapter). And I'm not talking just about the desert and tundra areas where humans don't want to live, but about half the ecosystem productivity, half of each ecosystem, perhaps half of each country, state, and even township.