How many planets do you need?
Apr. 8th, 2008 07:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fitfoolGo play the Consumer Consequences Game (thanks to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
zarq and my roommate for telling me about this)
You click through the game, answering questions about your consumption patterns. At the end, it calculates how many earths we would need if everyone lived the same way you did. One fun part was clicking through the average scores of various demographic groups. Republicans scored worse than Democrats who score worse than those who identified with the Green Party. The higher your income, the more earths you consumed. (I had thought maybe the wealthier would be more able to buy the energy-efficient and organic stuff but then again, they probably also eat out more and buy more new stuff.) If you listen to NPR, you can also see how some of the NPR luminaries scored.
While I was answering the questions, I was patting myself on the back for having such a sustainable lifestyle. I was needing just 1.3 planets for a while since I had nice low scores for telecommuting, recycling, sharing living space with roommates, not shopping much, and having relatively low gas and electric bills. But then we got to the food question and I got dinged there for eating out and not eating organic or locally grown meat and vegetables. For me, I came in at needing 3.5 earths. While I've been reluctant to pay for what I perceived to be more expensive locally grown meat and vegetables, it's nice to see it will also help offset some of the environmental damage I contribute to just by going about my everyday living. (and it might even end up being cheaper -- we shall see) I originally said that less than 10% of my food was organic or locally grown. When I upped that to 60-80%, my score went from 3.5 earths down to 2.6. Not bad.
zarq and my roommate for telling me about this)You click through the game, answering questions about your consumption patterns. At the end, it calculates how many earths we would need if everyone lived the same way you did. One fun part was clicking through the average scores of various demographic groups. Republicans scored worse than Democrats who score worse than those who identified with the Green Party. The higher your income, the more earths you consumed. (I had thought maybe the wealthier would be more able to buy the energy-efficient and organic stuff but then again, they probably also eat out more and buy more new stuff.) If you listen to NPR, you can also see how some of the NPR luminaries scored.
While I was answering the questions, I was patting myself on the back for having such a sustainable lifestyle. I was needing just 1.3 planets for a while since I had nice low scores for telecommuting, recycling, sharing living space with roommates, not shopping much, and having relatively low gas and electric bills. But then we got to the food question and I got dinged there for eating out and not eating organic or locally grown meat and vegetables. For me, I came in at needing 3.5 earths. While I've been reluctant to pay for what I perceived to be more expensive locally grown meat and vegetables, it's nice to see it will also help offset some of the environmental damage I contribute to just by going about my everyday living. (and it might even end up being cheaper -- we shall see) I originally said that less than 10% of my food was organic or locally grown. When I upped that to 60-80%, my score went from 3.5 earths down to 2.6. Not bad.
