What have the current Financial Debt Crisis and Sustainability in common?

In This Article:
- How we can measure our Ecological Footprints
- Why we should NOT spend more than our natural bank-statement allows  

   
If you don't have a TV, like me then you might use Netflix to satisfy your desire for motion pictures. The  documentary "The Ecological Footprint: Accounting for a Small Planet", I recently saw uses an interesting approach towards Sustainability, which is the key word for this blog.

  

Interestingly, Sustainability and Ecology are topics which are pretty big on the higher-education wish list for many university and college in the country this year, so we know this sustainability thing must be important somehow. But how and why? The immediate answer would be - because there is something to have try knowledge, interested students, innovative technology and engineering, and maybe even a business model. And this is were the documentary comes in. In a nutshell the idea is to use accounting or business tools to quantify the ecological footprint of our world, nations, or even you and me. So, basically what they did is, to make a balance sheet with contrasting Ecological Demand on the one side and Ecological Supply on the other. 

Being a  Ecological Creditor 

Here they compared the areas needed to supply us humans with whatever we want and need, such as for growing crops, grazing animals, harvesting fish, settlements, timber areas to absorbing CO2. The result? Well, starting with the US, the area needed to supply every american (on average) to live like we do is about 9.5 football fields. So how much football fields are there per person in the US? About 4.9. Thus, on average we are living twice in excess to what we should, giving our national resources. 

And this is where the financial part comes in. Basically this "ecological footprint" can be compared to a bank account. Say, if you spend more money than you have in your bank account what happens? Well, first of all probably nothing much, because you use all your credit cards and borrow yourself some $$$. Over time however, you will get into some serious trouble, not only financially. It is a no-brainer that such a debt-heavy lifestyle is financially and ecologically not sustainable. So, the punchline is, if we spend more of natures' assets than there are available on our 'bank statements', we are sooner or later will have a problem - it's that simple. Within this context it is interesting to notice how not only modest living Mr. Smith got into financial trouble, but also large banks and even entire countries. Funny, how studied and extremely knowledgeable people are able to run-down our assets with such 'success'.        

Here's another analogy: imagine you are in a sailboat in the pacific ocean. You prepared for this journey, so you packed food, water etc. Out here in the open waters cut-off from any more supply you very quickly think about the amount of supply you have an start to value what you have.   

So, let me ask you:
What would you change to take less from nature?