Chapter 31, Problem 1AC

Summary Introduction

To list: Some reasons that residents of affluent countries like the United States have especially large negative effects on the Earth’s ecosystem.

Introduction: Ecological footprint estimates how fast an individual can consume natural resources and how fast the individual produces waste and the surface area left for waste to absorb. It measures all the natural resources along with carbon footprint and estimate accordingly; U.S. residents have very large ecological footprint because of their lavish lifestyle, consume so much of energy, have a high population that lives in a high space area, use woods to construct their homes, and are more reliable on the synthetic food or fast food.