User:

s.leacock

Date:

Oct 17, 2009 11:13

I totally agree, this quiz is quite off. The questions being asked aren't specific enough because these questions are way to general. For example food - "are you a carnivore, herbivore, etc... / and then there is another question which asks - "do you eat two or three meals a day..." These questions are way to general to actually be correct, the reason I say that is because many people eat three meals per day, but at the same time they don't know the amount of food consumes through one meal. Then there is carbon footprint, "how many km do you travel per year by a motor vehicle? - WHAT KIND OF QUESTION IS THIS, I think they ran out of questions to ask for carbon footprint. How are we able to calculate the amount of distance we travel by motor vehicle per year? Do we bring like a meter(?) stick with us where ever we go and calculate the distance we've traveled? Just by them asking us how much we travel per year I already know this quiz is kind of off. But in the end, i still applaud the webmaster for thinking of making this quiz, because this quiz will still show the footprint were leaving behind, even though it's a bit off.

User:

yn123456

Date:

Oct 16, 2009 09:58

I highly doubt that this quiz is that accurate. It's really lop-sided towards certain areas and questions you answers. For example you might not use aluminum or glass therefore you don't recycle it. This quiz would assume that you use them but don't recycle. Most people wouldn't really know how to answer some of these questions.However most people can tell whether they're living a bad lifestyle or not as this quiz would give them a horrendous ecological footprint. It did help open my eyes, and I believe I can make some small day to day changes to make my footprint a bit smaller. I think this quiz should be more specific with its questions. Someone might drive alot but grow their own vegetables. Another person might do the same but drive a hybrid. Everybody is different so this test would have to be really specific with its questions to be accurate.

User:

philosopher

Date:

Aug 26, 2009 09:31

What this calculator shows is that the two dominant factors that affect your Ecological footprint is how you get about and what you put in your mouth.

You can cram 5 people into a hovel, grow your own veg, buy organic, avoid gadgets, recycle everything and car pool but you will always need more than one planet earth if you eat meat several times a day, use private transport daily or commute long distances.

Meat (including seafood) farming and transport consumes a great deal of energy. This far exceeds what we use in our homes or goes in the things that most people buy.

User:

trpt2050

Date:

Apr 22, 2009 11:54

I understand that the questions are as spefic as possible for the purpose. One question I found a little too general was concerning the amount of property on which my house, and I assume those of others, is sited upon. For example, I answered that the house lot is 34,000 sq. feet. While that is accurate, it did not take into account that about 18,000 sq. feet remains in its natural, wooded condition. It would be a more accurate question if there were an additional question asking how much of the property is cleared and how much is in its natural state.

User:

gregorreis

Date:

Apr 4, 2009 15:37

One more thing I noticed that was a problem--when I unchecked "natural gas" use, my footprint went UP instead of down. Almost all my heating comes from fuelwood (small net carbon effect over the life of the trees cut), but if I switched to gas, this quiz would reward me for all the unsustainable gas drilling going on that has much greater impacts.

User:

gregorreis

Date:

Apr 4, 2009 15:32

I agree that there needs to be a simpler version for people with less knowledge--but there also needs to be a more complex version for people with more knowledge! The solution could be to make all questions optional, and have each section include "beginner" and "advanced" tabs that would show more or less questions. You just fill out the ones you know.

For those of us that know a lot about our resource use (and that already do a lot to reduce it), this is an at-times frustrating quiz and the opportunity to provide more detail would be welcomed. For example, I live in a small mountain town with an isolated water system that is all gravity-flow and is quite sustainable (except for a little chlorine use and sludge disposal). Relating my water use to acres of cropland has no relation to reality. And relating a Californian's energy use to the rest of the USA is flawed as well.

One other question--the one that bothered me the most--was the question about what you spend vs. save, #23. I understand what the question is getting at, but it implies that the bigger your bank account (for your income range) the lower your impact. The problem is that savings is just deferred spending--someone will spend it someday on something, and that will have an impact. It isn't so much what you spend that matters, it is what you spend it on. I borrowed money to buy solar panels, and to buy this house so I'd have the ability to put solar panels on it--those investments (one in renewable energy and the other in reusing an existing structure) have a very different effect than someone frugally saving up for and spending on a home entertainment system. Yet the latter person could answer this question better than I can, because I reinvest almost all my extra income into making my home more efficient. The question could be changed to "What do you invest in?"

User:

provisions

Date:

Feb 3, 2009 14:11

I agree that the quiz is not accurate, especially with food options. I am American and do buy organic and local food from my store, yet that option isn't there. I also try to buy local and seasonal produce instead of just organic. The options about how I eat were also limited. There should be a question about if you use reusable bags instead of plastic or paper. Especially since paper bags are horrible, yet give the idea of being consumer conscious.

User:

Susan Orlowski

Date:

Dec 18, 2008 15:20

EleanorA wrote:
This quiz is a really good way of showing people how much they consume and how to go about changing their lifestyle to be more "green". However, on...

Susan O.
December 17, 2008

This updated quiz is better than the first one but I think something else should be added to the section on buying clothes. I don't buy eco-clothes but I buy second hand clothes and use them until they are well worn then use them for rags. A section on purchasing second hand clothes should be added.

Also another area that could be added is how long a person takes a shower. I take a 3 minute shower, I am in and out in no time so I waste very little water. Also about filling the dish washer before using it. I am so good at stacking our dishes that we are well stacked and filled before using it.

Also, I think it would be easier to figure out how many miles a person drives, takes the bus, etc if it were weekly. To figure it out for a year is a difficult task. I take the bus to work every day and rarely use the car and try to make sure that more that one person is in the car and I batch erands together.

User:

EleanorA

Date:

Oct 29, 2008 11:37

This quiz is a really good way of showing people how much they consume and how to go about changing their lifestyle to be more "green". However, on my quiz I had a problem with the section regarding transportation. I do not have a car, no one in my family uses one in fact, but I do travel in cars of other people, yet I am supposed to choose what type of car I own after putting how many miles I travel yearly in a car. This quiz should and another option for those who do not own cars, because that part brought up my footprint by a lot, just from choosing the type of car I usually drive. Also, another problem that I had with the quiz was in the food section. I DO eat meats, as well as veggies, however I do not really eat that much in a day. I usually eat about 1 meal in the day and yet my food section was the highest out of all of them. I just thought that did not really make sense. But anyways, other then those few things the quiz is really good. Good job for who ever created it.

User:

ch4mps1

Date:

Oct 28, 2008 01:29

I agree with you acarmen my foot print cannot be determined by a mere 30 questions... I live with a very low consumption rate and even with that said it was estimated that i would need approx 4 1/2 planets......... no way each question should be broken down further to assure better results.

User:

Angelique

Date:

Oct 28, 2008 00:33

This quiz allows us to have an idea of what our use of the earth is. Although it is missing certain variables, such as different cultural diets (which don't include pork, beef, or some seafoods), our environmental impact at our jobs, and the fact that not all answers can be categorized as one amount of contribution. Specifically I'm reffering to transportation, there is no drop down menu for the hybrid buses, which I use everyday. Overall the results, however inaccurate,open our eyes to where we contribute (carbon, food etc) and offfers solutions to how we can change.

User:

maximilian

Date:

Oct 27, 2008 20:56

simplyla wrote:
I agree with this poster. I love the website and think the quiz is very well written. I saw my footprint increase as I admitted to how much time I...

this is so true i agree because i have exactly the same conditions
i don't have a car and the only time i ride a car is when going to church on weekends my friend carpool me and the car is always filled with 5 people including the driver
and i too live in an apartment. i don't have a dishwasher so i never run it. there's laundry room downstairs but i never used the dryer. i hang dry my clothes all the time inside my room. also i have really simple lifestyle so i don't have much home electronics and i never watch tv, i don't even have tv cable service. i never replaced any electronic stuff except for my old monitor which i got from the street and light bulbs if that counts. and same thing to landscaping washing cars and etc. there aren't options for not having those so the footprint would be higher than it actually is.

User:

americasucks

Date:

Oct 24, 2008 07:20

Ianapharri wrote:
I believe that your website and other similar services have a vital role to play in educating people about Climate Change. However, your questions...

NO! NO! NO! This website needs to focus on US markets only. Our goal is to socialize the United States of America Sucks to punish those greedy capitalist pigs. The reason the third world lives in such drastic poverty is because WE SUCK all the resources of Mother Earth. Focus on the USAS only. It matters not that China throws many times the amount of pollution of the USAS into the environment. They are communist. They have their minds right. We don't need to force them to clean up because cleaning up is not our ultimate goal. Continue to use USAS environmental policy to FORCE us to conform to the socialist point of view. VOTE OBAMA!

User:

simplyla

Date:

Oct 15, 2008 00:45

I should also mention all our water is non-potable, and we only have solar-heated water (no gas or electric water heater).

User:

simplyla

Date:

Oct 15, 2008 00:40

Ianapharri wrote:
I believe that your website and other similar services have a vital role to play in educating people about Climate Change. However, your questions...

I agree with this poster. I love the website and think the quiz is very well written. I saw my footprint increase as I admitted to how much time I spend on airplanes, but decrease as I shared about my composting, electricity, and water habits.

However, I do not live in the US, and some thing seem to be assumed that are not true for me:

Do I only run the dishwasher when it is full?
Well, I don't have a dishwasher, so I never run it.

Do I turn up & down the thermostat for the weather?
We don't have central heating and air, or even air conditioner or heater units.

Do I hang dry my clothes as often as possible?
We, like everyone where I live, don't own a dryer!

How often do I drive?
We don't own a car.

Do we minimize watering the lawn?
No lawn -- We live in an apartment complex.

Thanks nonetheless for the excellent site and quiz. Very thought-provoking.

User:

anniethefinn

Date:

Sep 28, 2008 14:35

oops... using a friends laptop.. will continue straight on:

the teast would need more accurate options to choose from to become REALLY CONVINCING in the eyes of people that still live in doubt.
I'm planning on using geothermal energy for heating our house and on installing a well with a pump on our yard, as my friends already have done. Saves energy and costs. No options there...

PLEASE continue working on the calculator, it's a great idea!

User:

anniethefinn

Date:

Sep 28, 2008 14:27

Hello! Thanks for the great footprint calculator!
It has received a lot of publicity in the Finnish media lately, and therefore cought my attention as well, and I did my test.

The idea is exellent, but, as many have mentiopnned already, it would need more accurate options to become

User:

acamaren

Date:

Sep 17, 2008 22:39

I also do not believe that the quiz is 100 % accurate. My eco footprint cannot be determined by a total of like 30 questions. The questions needed more of break downs. The questions were too general and not detailed enough to determine our eco footprint.

User:

JayKay62969

Date:

Aug 13, 2008 13:13

I agree with other comments here that this test needs to be more specific to really help those of us already living environmentally conscious lives. I was very disappointed with my score of 2.24 planets!! I feel it would have been much lower if there were more specific questions. The only other way I can think of that I could decrease my footprint is to own a home. Many of the suggestions given are not possible for renters. Also, some cities (like Houston, TX where I live, Yuck!) are not walkable and offer poor or little public transportation. The upside is it makes me even more determined to move to a small town or rural community, and build a home where I can grow my own food and live more sustainably.

User:

merryj94

Date:

Jun 25, 2008 10:05

I think what the quiz is saying is that, if you live in the Good Ole US of A, you automatically have a footprint greater than 100 acres, or we need 4 planets to support our lifestyle - NO MATTER WHAT WE DO. So let's just move all Americans somehwere else - problem solved! Just kidding. That's much worse.

But in all seriousness, I put in the SAME EXACT answers to the same questions, but said that I lived in the UK instead of in USA, and we went from 4.6 planets to 2.3 planets. For the same lifestyle.

Come on - if we're actually trying to find out how we're doing, please don't assume we're doing what everyone else does. I eat meat every day, but it comes from the organic farm only 2 miles away (and I go there once a week to pick up my meat and veggies, not every day). They graze the chickens on the cow pastures, enhancing the soil, the meat, and the eggs, in a single space. OK, so I live in kind of a big house for two people, but that's because we'd like to have a child or two sometime, and we wanted to be able to have a garden now, so we bought one we could grow into. And it's 100 years old, so how's that for recycling?

The quiz should ask things like - what does your water bill say your water consumption is? How many kWHs of electricity do you use per year (and what is the mix used)? Do you buy all local meat and produce (what % is shipped from more than 100 miles away?) How many gallons/cubic feet of LNG or propane do you use per year? How many miles do you drive per year (and what's your mpg)? How about not just counting the sq feet/acres of your property, but how many trees (or what %) are on it? That's gotta count for something. An acre of bare lawn that needs watering and feeding is not the same footprint as an acre of woods.

Yes, I'm showing my American bias for the old measurements, but I'm glad that they offer these things both ways - translating is hard :-)

And the suggestions to reduce your footprint shouldn't suggest things you already said you do. How hard can it be to filter out the ones you checked off?

All that said, it's a good tool to make you think. I guess I just wanted more :)

User:

ziuraitis70

Date:

Jun 11, 2008 00:14

The footprint is not accurate. Question #10 asks about energy saving features and I chose all except solar panels, because I have a brand new condominium in which the builder used all energy saving appliances, the newest insulation so I barely use the central air/heat. Everything is electric and my bill is 60.00/mo. The footprint suggestions after the quiz suggested I do everything that I already do. I think the footprint is generic rather than specific to each tester. I do approximately 90% of the suggested items and my ecological footprint equals 4.28 earths. A choice of don't use or buy should be added especially for questions like #26-What wastes do I recycle? I don't recycle aluminum or glass because I do not purchase disposable aluminum or throw away glass products unless it is necessary. For instance, the pickle jar (purchase twice a year) we use for soup leftovers or my kids' science project.

I was not even aware until my science class that this kind of information is available. I do get upset about what is happening to the earth, but I do my part on a daily basis.

KZ

User:

Chris S.

Date:

Jun 10, 2008 09:20

Ianapharri wrote:
I believe that your website and other similar services have a vital role to play in educating people about Climate Change. However, your questions...

I completely agree with the above comment. I used the old simpler version of this Footprint Quiz with university and younger students here in Japan and India and found it much more understandable and applicable.
Here is a copy of the email I sent to this site about three weeks ago. I am yet to receive a response.

Greetings!
My name is Chris Summerville and I am an Environmental Education teacher who has just returned from teaching and giving teacher's workshops on EE in India.
Thank you for your wonderful 'Eco-Footprint' Quiz, which I have been using in my ESL classes in Japanese Universities for the past six years or so. Please see the attached document to see how I used the earlier version of the Quiz in a ESL setting.
I recently gave a teacher's workshop in Delhi, and assigned your page as a homework without checking before to see if any changes had been made. I did check the page that night and my 'fears' were given voice to when a number of teachers commented the next day that they felt certain parts of the quiz were outside their lives and appeared aimed at already informed more 'Western' people.
Looking at the quiz's new format, I would also like to comment that it would create a lot of questions in younger students (I have conducted your earlier quiz with students Grade 7 to university age, both in ESL classes and EE classes) which is not a bad thing, but would possibly get in the way of them doing a simple and easy to understand quiz (like the earlier one) to arrive at the very important data regarding hectares and planets needed to sustain their lifestyle. In its present form, it is quite complex and 'foreign' to both the Japanese and Indian students, not to mention teachers, who may attempt it.
Following are the specific items I found particularly 'advanced':
The lowest salary range of $29,000 or under in the India selection is just too much when the average teacher even in Delhi is earning about $7000 a year!
# 8. What percentage of energy used in your home comes from renewable resources? (Students will not know, will not put in anything and thus distort the results)
#9. The number of miles travelled each YEAR.( Most of us don't know. The previous method of giving a selection of ranges for each WEEK is much better!)
#10. Mentions of thermostat, power strips and power equipment when landscaping will only confuse the average Indian since most do not use or even yet know what these are.
#12 Purchased offsets for carbon emissions. The majority of people both here in Japan and India, and probably even most of US have no idea of what this means and if they do, have no idea of how to purchase.
#19. How much of your house is made of recycled materials, or ... Again, it is important to put these concepts into people's minds, but this question again would stop the average student from completing the quiz because they don't know and don't know how to find out. The same applies for #20
#21 Low flow toilets
Low flow shower heads and faucets
Instant water heaters on sinks
Rainwater catchment system
Grey water recycling system
Drought tolerant landscaping
Again, these questions, though important for us to know about and be aware of would stop a student in their tracks, especially an Indian one!
Questions #25 and 26 are also difficult in the way they are worded since Indians and Japanese do not use 'standard Garbage cans' or really know how much of what they use is recycled..though they may.

My suggestion at this point would be if possible to have a simple quiz (for students?) that would not intimidate them and would allow them ALL to complete the quiz so they can at least have a ROUGH idea of their footprint. They could then be told about the concepts introduced in the advanced quiz, and then take that one when they understand the concepts!

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts about this,
With hope, Chris Summerville

User:

cybersun

Date:

Jun 4, 2008 08:10

I agree that it is not a very accurate quiz. For instance I think it's hard to find out how many kilometers I fly every year. I could rather tell how often I use plane to go on vacation to which continent. I also don't have a car, but the survey doesn't ask me about that. It also asks about clothes AND paper in the same question, and my answers would be two different ones.. Almost all the food I eat is ecological grown, but I buy it from the supermarket. I guess this quiz is made for american conditions where you can't buy all ecological food in supermarkets? I also choose paperbags over plasticbags, and when I give away presents I use my creativity with recycled material for the wrapping. This quiz doesn't ask about those kind of things. I don't wish myself gifts on my birthday, but encourage the guests to give money to microfinance projects in Africa and Asia. I also never give away plastic toys to children. The quiz doesn't ask about this either. And when the quiz asks about if I spend money or save them, my answer would be that I use 80 prosent, and give the rest to different projects where they are needed. So, I guess my result (2,3 worlds) is a bit off.. But of course I know I can always do better.

User:

Wildjt11

Date:

Apr 20, 2008 13:55

Even if you don't eat fish, your consumption can impact marine fisheries. This is because marine fisheries are impacted by carbon emissions (which are having the effect of acidifying the oceans and depleting fish stocks) and polluted runoff from the land. This from a CNN story a couple of years back: "A report by the Royal Society, the UK's leading scientific academy, said that rising carbon levels caused by the burning of fossil fuels had dramatically increased the acidity of seawater, threatening the oceans' ecosystems. Sea creatures such as coral, shell fish and star fish are likely to suffer because higher levels of acidity will make it harder for them to form shells and skeletons. The report predicts that some types of plankton, a major food source for marine life, may be unable to make their calcium carbonate shells by the end of the 21st century. Larger marine animals such as squid could face extinction as they find it harder to extract oxygen from sea water and their food supplies dwindle."The quiz takes this into account.

User:

Ianapharri

Date:

Apr 18, 2008 05:14

I believe that your website and other similar services have a vital role to play in educating people about Climate Change. However, your questions are designed purely for a US market. If you are really serious about involving the planet in this, then you need to design a model that relates to them and not just your home market.

User:

littleireney

Date:

Apr 17, 2008 20:37

I find that some parts of this quiz are not that accurate. I find that the food footprint is a bit off. For myself I agree that I am omnivorous but my meat intake is small. I really doesn't ask your meat (what kinds) or fish consumptions which can change the odds. I also fine the meal thing a bit odd, I felt like I was not even in one category.

Also, I think there needs to be some changing in where you buy your food because supermarkets also sell local foods.