by Worldchanging Intern, Alex Lowe: To understand the subtleties and difficulties in ecological footprinting, think of accounting. In the past few years, Enron’s collapse and the scandals that surrounded WorldCom gave people a small glimpse into the intricacies of accountancy. To the uninitiated, the swirl of news reports circa 2003 must have posed several questions: How hard can accounting really be? How can any grey areas exist in an activity as seemingly concrete and dry as counting beans? But grey areas abound, and the task of accounting for nature’s resources as well as their depletion from human demand is, to use the colloquial, a doozy. How can one compare the value of a single fish to that of a bushel of corn or a California redwood? How does that relationship change from the exhaust pouring out of your car or the dishwater circling your drain? The methodology for answering these questions in ecological footprint analysis (EFA) is often criticized for being incomplete and for underestimating humanity’s true impact on the environment. In response, researchers at Redefining Progress have made several amendments to the standard methodology, and given their creation the handle ‘Ecological Footprint 2.0.’ (Best explained by the paper Footprint… (more)
(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Biodiversity and Ecosystems at 9:08 AM)