42
within a vertical zone of less than 2 miles above sea level. We live where oxygen is
abundant, where we can breathe easily.
While we travel below and above of that range for exploration, recreation, or
specialized work like mining or scientific research, most activities take place relatively close to sea level. The amount of land available in this fairly narrow range for
all human activity is large, but not infinite.
From the earliest cartographers to today’s advanced satellite imagery and statistical surveys, we have made maps in order to measure and quantify territories and
boundaries and the features they contain. We know that one-quarter of the nearly 60
million square miles of the earth’s land surface is found more than 2 miles up and
that a third more is desert. What’s left is about 25 million square miles or 16 billion
acres. That gives each of the nearly 8 billion people on earth (7.815B in the fall of
2020) less than 2 acres of habitable land, once we subtract public amenities such as
airports, farms, rivers, roads, parks, recreational facilities, supermarkets, and landfills that we all share (Worldometer 2020).
3.2.1 Our Global Footprints
A person’s global footprint is the sum of all the resources that go into providing the
things and experiences that person has come to expect. Tallies of the amount of land
it takes to support a single person living the “American Way of Life” come to over
20 acres per individual. If these calculations are correct, we will need ten times the
amount of land we currently have to support the lifestyles more and more people
around the world increasingly demand.
The situation is complicated further now that we are producing more waste that
has to be put somewhere. The collective “garbage can” is already overflowing. We
can’t find places to put our trash anymore. We handle it, manage it, juggle it, and in
the end just stick it on top of one of the piles we have already started. When we cannot pile it any higher, we look for new places to create more piles or holes to fill
with it.
How Much Waste Do We Produce?
My young daughter, at just over 10 years old, has produced over 300 times her
bodyweight in garbage; this is equivalent to the weight of a family of Asian
elephants (Fig. 3.1). The volume it takes up would fill almost half our house
from floor to ceiling. By the time she graduates from college, our family of
three will have produced enough garbage to fill our entire house five times
over. At nearly 50 tons, this solid waste will weigh the same as a humpback
whale (Fig. 3.2). This all has to be put somewhere. Little by little, with each
thing we throw “away” to be trucked off and dumped in a landfill, we are
reducing the amount of land available to do the other things we want and
need to do.
3 Trash Can Living
within a vertical zone of less than 2 miles above sea level. We live where oxygen is
abundant, where we can breathe easily.
While we travel below and above of that range for exploration, recreation, or
specialized work like mining or scientific research, most activities take place relatively close to sea level. The amount of land available in this fairly narrow range for
all human activity is large, but not infinite.
From the earliest cartographers to today’s advanced satellite imagery and statistical surveys, we have made maps in order to measure and quantify territories and
boundaries and the features they contain. We know that one-quarter of the nearly 60
million square miles of the earth’s land surface is found more than 2 miles up and
that a third more is desert. What’s left is about 25 million square miles or 16 billion
acres. That gives each of the nearly 8 billion people on earth (7.815B in the fall of
2020) less than 2 acres of habitable land, once we subtract public amenities such as
airports, farms, rivers, roads, parks, recreational facilities, supermarkets, and landfills that we all share (Worldometer 2020).
3.2.1 Our Global Footprints
A person’s global footprint is the sum of all the resources that go into providing the
things and experiences that person has come to expect. Tallies of the amount of land
it takes to support a single person living the “American Way of Life” come to over
20 acres per individual. If these calculations are correct, we will need ten times the
amount of land we currently have to support the lifestyles more and more people
around the world increasingly demand.
The situation is complicated further now that we are producing more waste that
has to be put somewhere. The collective “garbage can” is already overflowing. We
can’t find places to put our trash anymore. We handle it, manage it, juggle it, and in
the end just stick it on top of one of the piles we have already started. When we cannot pile it any higher, we look for new places to create more piles or holes to fill
with it.
How Much Waste Do We Produce?
My young daughter, at just over 10 years old, has produced over 300 times her
bodyweight in garbage; this is equivalent to the weight of a family of Asian
elephants (Fig. 3.1). The volume it takes up would fill almost half our house
from floor to ceiling. By the time she graduates from college, our family of
three will have produced enough garbage to fill our entire house five times
over. At nearly 50 tons, this solid waste will weigh the same as a humpback
whale (Fig. 3.2). This all has to be put somewhere. Little by little, with each
thing we throw “away” to be trucked off and dumped in a landfill, we are
reducing the amount of land available to do the other things we want and
need to do.
3 Trash Can Living