Do you agree the impossibility of measuring the size of ecological Essay

Do you agree the impossibility of measuring the size of ecological footprints accurately undermines the idea of ecological citizenship - Essay Example rol the rate of individual man’s exploitation of natural resources, but the question that arises in this context is: can the ecological footprint support and incorporate corporate citizenship or does it actually undermine it? This study examines whether and to what extent, the ecological footprint can contribute towards environmental sustainability and how far it promotes or undermines a spirit of ecological citizenship. The co-creator of the concept of ecological footprint is Mathis Wackermagel, who in an interview, pointed out that there must be some degree of relative parity in the use of Earth’s resources among individuals from different parts of the planet.1 The ecological footprint offers a measurable tool that can determine how much of land and water resources humans need in order to be able to produce the resources they use and to absorb the wastes they generate, and this has been pegged at a footprint of 4.5 acres per person. But in the United States, the average size of this footprint is much larger, i.e, about 24 acres, which suggests that the average American citizen uses up much more than his or her fair share of the resources of the Planet.2 An ecological footprint may be defined as a â€Å"measurement of the land area required to sustain a population of any size.†3 Wackernagel, the co-creator of the ecological footprint, has defined it as â€Å"the land (and water) area that would be required to support a defined human population and material standard indefinitely.†4 Every individual uses certain basic amenities such as food, electricity and other basic amenities in order to survive and these resources need to be derived within the constraints of nature by using raw natural resources. An ecological footprint thus seeks to determine the amount of both land and water resources that must be used by every individual in order to sustain a population of any size over a future continuous period, with such an assessment being made on the basis of the