Okay, I am all for the Green Movement. I try to conserve electricity when I can, and I hope we are all driving earth friendly automobiles one day. But I am truly tired of the guilt factor that comes along with this movement; I just don't think mainstream consumers can sustain this negative emotion long term. If you want consumers to adopt earth-friendly practices as a way of life, I think we need to go about it from a different angle, and not so guilt ridden all the time.

If you start making me feel guilty about drinking milk--what's next?!? I thought milk did the body good!

Again, I love that we're all on board to make the planet a better place, but am I the only one out there who thinks we take it too far sometimes??

I agree with serp. I'm trying to reduce my energy comsuption this year by 20%. Unfortunately the sources I use to research how much energy my home is using (so I can reduce it) tell me how bad it is that my home uses X amount of energy. These sources never tell me how much energy my size house hold should be using to be considered ecologically responsible.
Condo Blues http://condo-blues.blogspot.com

You neglect to mention bottled water, an almost useless product.

We didn't listen. Best South Park episode ever. Human footprint show is boring. Kind of like being in school. I'm going to go have a beer.

So should we just do nothing in our lives? Just curl up into a ball and die? Is that the solution? I'm tired of being guilted too. I conserve where I can.

Are the servers running this website earth friendly???????

You can have my bottled water when you take it from my cold, dead hands.

What is the footprint of the resources that went into this rediculous show?

The Honda in the commercial looks pretty cool though.

re: The Human Footprint

Great effort, but I think that you missed a golden opportunity to truly extrapolate our effects on the planet based on rate of consumption alone. Also, I feel the kid glove approach lacked the emotional punch that this situation (our ability to self destruct via overconsumption has become a probability) warrants.

At a few points during the presentation you mentioned the compounding of the ROC(e.g. diapers) and how the manufacturing processes, packaging, and required materials normally used to dispose of same added even more materials to the overall equation. This same formula could have been applied, at least in reference, to truly express a more representative appraisal of the real numbers involved.

With a more thoroughly thought out assesment,it could have been shown that packaging alone (the boxes that held wholesale quantities, the shrink wrap that held pallet loads,the pallets themselves...and,heck, right down to the paper/plastic/ and other materials used to address every aspect of the whole process which should then concider each elementary process/product and each ancillary process/product [from survey to design to marketer to manufacturer to marketer to wholesaler to marketer to retailer to advertising media to consumer to post-consumer and disposal] and to include the related paper,plastic,and energy unit required [for e-purposes], etc. for the purpose of tracking/documentation/payment along it's path of delivery to and from the consumer would have required a magnification of the representaion of the couple of acres of consumer goods/ per person/ per lifetime shown at the end of the show by a facter of what I see as being at least five if not ten or more. (And, by the way, in that last shot, I failed to see: the 10' x20' rented storage space, the powerboat, the jet ski,the RV, the Bowflex, the 55 gallon fish tank-complete with 80 inches of tropical fish, a big screen TV,1620 cartons of cigarettes,the 6400 batteries, or the Harley Davidson touring bike.)

Factor in, too, the "human error component" ("Oh, we forgot to get milk...I'll go back and get some!"); and how then do you measure this inadequacy in "grey" areas: I must use at least two gallons of gasoline/per year going to non-existant garage sales where people have neglected to be responsible (See: Robert Fulghum's "Everything I Needed To Know I Learned In Kindergarten") and take down their "sale" signs from the week before?!?!(And then the street department guys gotta stop that big ol' truck and get out and pick up all those old signs when they finally fall off the telephone poles...)

All boll- pucky kidding aside... (And we need do just that):

Two or three last comments-and I believe the gravity of this problem warrants it- that would further my point and hopefully impress those who would deny the truths you hoped to express in your presentation (and I saw by my cursory review of viewer comments that, unbelievably, they are still out there):
(1) you showed literal plastic "quarts" of oil to reflect the fuel requirements for the manufacture of the above mentioned diapers and even eroniously mentioned something about the quantity of plastic used for same and the requirements for their ultimate disposal. Do you really think that the diaper manufacturer ordered and used "X" million quarts of oil last year to produce and meet their quotas? How about having done something similar to the chicken egg shot: spilling a string of 109,500 railroad tank cars (10 cars x 3 derailments/accidents with chemical spills/ per day x 365 days per year) along with five supertanker loads, and then prorating that total gallonage to reflect a per person quantity? And don't forget reflecting the clean-up requirements necessary as well as the resultant hundreds of 1000's of tons of airborne pollutants dispersed when fires are involved.

(And since we are talking about fires and destruction- you neglected to factor in "replacement" needs as they apply to the homes that are destroyed in ever increasing numbers due to our poor planning of land use (unstable hillsides, flood plains, high fire regions, earthquake fault zones, eroding coastlines,etc.)

(2)you mentioned our obsession with television. (How about the movie industry?). What if we were to apply the same critical eye toward this "entertainment" industry of ours and it's respect for shock value by means of explosive, destructive,excessive, and lavish production and the subsequent promotioning? You again could have expanded that end shot to include at least another acre or two/ per person for that real part of our wreckless folly alone.

(3) the bottom line could have been also been additionally expressed by referencing what I feel is the most valuable tool that has been recently developed, and could have been used here, in this regard, to simply state our dilemna: the earths balance sheet as measured by a comprehensive network of satelite and earth bound measuring systems and an array of computers with the necessary programs that together can take input sets of numbers that reflect the rate of consumption by humans for any period of time; and relate the results to another set of totals that reflect the earth's ability to provide raw materials- it's very finite natural resources-with the resultant totals reflecting then a ratio: consumer needs vs. the earths ability to sustain them. And last I saw that rate was at 120% per year. In other words a global deficit "spending" rate of twenty percent per year at present levels of consumption.

So, in my overall retrospective reaction to this presentation I personally would say again,in other words,that you squandered a great opportunity to use the great illustrative techniques that you did use due to some to-me- unknown reason(s),as I have seen National Geographic as having made great efforts as of late to deliver the warning signs as you are so capable of doing.

An opportunity to inspire or convince or otherwise get everyone involved (even the nay-sayers) in starting the monumental process of fundamentally changing our ways was lost. And one of so much import today- not at 12:01 tomorrow.

Alas, I believe that just getting everyone to acknowledge the problem- to get out of our denial dominated mentality- will, use up what time we do have before our seeming destiny arrives: the irreversable elimination of the human being as part of the function of life on earth, sans the effects our 6-7 billion decomposing bodies will have on the planet's remaining lifeforms. Beyond that I have no concerns. I have little doubt the earth and all of it's non-human family members to be able to do a whole lot better without us.

Timeframe? Jacques Cousteau once said at a symposium of environmentalists that he believed that if we did not decidedly and markedly turn from our planet abusing ways within ten years time, the effects of our actions/inactions would be irreversable as far as humans were concerned. I recall that to have been about fourteen years ago!!!!!!!!!

People! Get informed with accurate and meaningful data! We talk of the importance of the conversion of "just five incandescent bulbs"! Get real! I mean what is 1/1000 of 2%?!?! (The amount of consumer level energy used in those bulbs within the home being the numerator, and the total energy consumption in the home alone being the denominator; and the two percent being that part of the energy use pie that the home represents. .

(The "carrot" you and others like you presently offer the consumer here will provide but 1/50,000 of the requisite solution in the area of energy use alone. And such short sighted promotion will only lead the semi-conscious average American consumer into a state of having a false sense of security, when 280,000,000
super fire alarms should be sounding!

P.S. To the persistent doubters: I suggest you need to quit whining...or you'll get no cheese!

re: The Human Footprint

Great effort, but I think that you missed a golden opportunity to truly extrapolate our effects on the planet based on rate of consumption alone. Also, I feel the kid glove approach lacked the emotional punch that this situation (our ability to self destruct via overconsumption has become a probability) warrants.

At a few points during the presentation you mentioned the compounding of the ROC(e.g. diapers) and how the manufacturing processes, packaging, and required materials normally used to dispose of same added even more materials to the overall equation. This same formula could have been applied, at least in reference, to truly express a more representative appraisal of the real numbers involved.

With a more thoroughly thought out assesment,it could have been shown that packaging alone (the boxes that held wholesale quantities, the shrink wrap that held pallet loads,the pallets themselves...and,heck, right down to the paper/plastic/ and other materials used to address every aspect of the whole process which should then concider each elementary process/product and each ancillary process/product [from survey to design to marketer to manufacturer to marketer to wholesaler to marketer to retailer to advertising media to consumer to post-consumer and disposal] and to include the related paper,plastic,and energy unit required [for e-purposes], etc. for the purpose of tracking/documentation/payment along it's path of delivery to and from the consumer would have required a magnification of the representaion of the couple of acres of consumer goods/ per person/ per lifetime shown at the end of the show by a facter of what I see as being at least five if not ten or more. (And, by the way, in that last shot, I failed to see: the 10' x20' rented storage space, the powerboat, the jet ski,the RV, the Bowflex, the 55 gallon fish tank-complete with 80 inches of tropical fish, a big screen TV,1620 cartons of cigarettes,the 6400 batteries, or the Harley Davidson touring bike.)

Factor in, too, the "human error component" ("Oh, we forgot to get milk...I'll go back and get some!"); and how then do you measure this inadequacy in "grey" areas: I must use at least two gallons of gasoline/per year going to non-existant garage sales where people have neglected to be responsible (See: Robert Fulghum's "Everything I Needed To Know I Learned In Kindergarten") and take down their "sale" signs from the week before?!?!(And then the street department guys gotta stop that big ol' truck and get out and pick up all those old signs when they finally fall off the telephone poles...)

All boll- pucky kidding aside... (And we need do just that):

Two or three last comments-and I believe the gravity of this problem warrants it- that would further my point and hopefully impress those who would deny the truths you hoped to express in your presentation (and I saw by my cursory review of viewer comments that, unbelievably, they are still out there):
(1) you showed literal plastic "quarts" of oil to reflect the fuel requirements for the manufacture of the above mentioned diapers and even eroniously mentioned something about the quantity of plastic used for same and the requirements for their ultimate disposal. Do you really think that the diaper manufacturer ordered and used "X" million quarts of oil last year to produce and meet their quotas? How about having done something similar to the chicken egg shot: spilling a string of 109,500 railroad tank cars (10 cars x 3 derailments/accidents with chemical spills/ per day x 365 days per year) along with five supertanker loads, and then prorating that total gallonage to reflect a per person quantity? And don't forget reflecting the clean-up requirements necessary as well as the resultant hundreds of 1000's of tons of airborne pollutants dispersed when fires are involved.

(And since we are talking about fires and destruction- you neglected to factor in "replacement" needs as they apply to the homes that are destroyed in ever increasing numbers due to our poor planning of land use (unstable hillsides, flood plains, high fire regions, earthquake fault zones, eroding coastlines,etc.)

(2)you mentioned our obsession with television. (How about the movie industry?). What if we were to apply the same critical eye toward this "entertainment" industry of ours and it's respect for shock value by means of explosive, destructive,excessive, and lavish production and the subsequent promotioning? You again could have expanded that end shot to include at least another acre or two/ per person for that real part of our wreckless folly alone.

(3) the bottom line could have been also been additionally expressed by referencing what I feel is the most valuable tool that has been recently developed, and could have been used here, in this regard, to simply state our dilemna: the earths balance sheet as measured by a comprehensive network of satelite and earth bound measuring systems and an array of computers with the necessary programs that together can take input sets of numbers that reflect the rate of consumption by humans for any period of time; and relate the results to another set of totals that reflect the earth's ability to provide raw materials- it's very finite natural resources-with the resultant totals reflecting then a ratio: consumer needs vs. the earths ability to sustain them. And last I saw that rate was at 120% per year. In other words a global deficit "spending" rate of twenty percent per year at present levels of consumption.

So, in my overall retrospective reaction to this presentation I personally would say again,in other words,that you squandered a great opportunity to use the great illustrative techniques that you did use due to some to-me- unknown reason(s),as I have seen National Geographic as having made great efforts as of late to deliver the warning signs as you are so capable of doing.

An opportunity to inspire or convince or otherwise get everyone involved (even the nay-sayers) in starting the monumental process of fundamentally changing our ways was lost. And one of so much import today- not at 12:01 tomorrow.

Alas, I believe that just getting everyone to acknowledge the problem- to get out of our denial dominated mentality- will, use up what time we do have before our seeming destiny arrives: the irreversable elimination of the human being as part of the function of life on earth, sans the effects our 6-7 billion decomposing bodies will have on the planet's remaining lifeforms. Beyond that I have no concerns. I have little doubt the earth and all of it's non-human family members to be able to do a whole lot better without us.

Timeframe? Jacques Cousteau once said at a symposium of environmentalists that he believed that if we did not decidedly and markedly turn from our planet abusing ways within ten years time, the effects of our actions/inactions would be irreversable as far as humans were concerned. I recall that to have been about fourteen years ago!!!!!!!!!

People! Get informed with accurate and meaningful data! We talk of the importance of the conversion of "just five incandescent bulbs"! Get real! I mean what is 1/1000 of 2%?!?! (The amount of consumer level energy used in those bulbs within the home being the numerator, and the total energy consumption in the home alone being the denominator; and the two percent being that part of the energy use pie that the home represents. .

(The "carrot" you and others like you presently offer the consumer here will provide but 1/50,000 of the requisite solution in the area of energy use alone. And such short sighted promotion will only lead the semi-conscious average American consumer into a state of having a false sense of security, when 280,000,000
super fire alarms should be sounding!

P.S. To the persistent doubters: I suggest you need to quit whining...or you'll get no cheese!