My Footprint
I happen to be in one of the easiest positions to use National Geographic's compilations of American consumption that they gave in their dish/cable program "Human Footprint." I am only one year short of having reached what they said is the average American lifetime, 77.9 years. and the other figures they gave confirmed what I always knew. I am way below average in the amounts of energy, food, and materials that I've consumed, and therefore I'm above average when it comes to having a footprint with the least possible impact. This also backs up what I said just recently -- smaller is better!
I know, though, that this means that I have lagged miserably in contributing to the national economy, and therefore I should expect little or nothing from its benefits, and I understand and have always been comfortable with that. So I am puzzled by how much stuff has accrued to me nevertheless. I guess that is what getting close to just the life span of an average American does for a person Things just rain from the indiscriminate skies, unless you work really hard at escaping those showers.
The times gave me a great start in contributing to the "crime" of under-consumption. I was one of the first Depression Babies, and today's average of 3,796 disposable diapers were not needed to get me through my first 2-1/2 years. None existed in those days, and right there that saved what today's toddlers are busily requiring before they even know what is happening: 1,890 pounds of oil, 715 pounds of plastic, and 4-1/2 good-sized trees. Of course keeping my little carcass clean did take more water, but in those days there were far fewer people using the spigots.
As those times were during the Great Depression, when not nearly as much money was available for food or for anything else, I early had ingrained into me a habit that I suspect is almost unknown today, and that is always leaving my plate clean, and I've carried that through to this day. It also helped that for some reason eating was never at the top of my list of the most enjoyable things to do or even to talk about, whether or not I could afford even a little of the things I like most.
I am certain that I have not drunk enough milk or eaten enough ice cream to amount to 13,056 pints of milk, which the NGC people scrounged up from somewhere and neatly set close together into long rows on someone's lawn and thereby formed an army of pint boxes that extended onto the street and then marched down the street, covering the whole of it for a block or more. Nor have I eaten 19,826 eggs or enough sandwiches to require the average buying over all those years of 4,376 loaves of bread. I haven't even remotely downed 43,371 cans of soft drinks or 13,248 cans and bottles of beer, or 942 bottles of wine. I mainly like ginger ale, but that probably hasn't amounted to more than 2,000 half-gallon bottles. And I've never liked the taste of liquor, so the amounts of those fluids have hardly been enough to shower a cat.
I think I can also safely say that I've fallen 2 short of the 5 bulls and as many as 4 of the 6 hogs that are needed to keep the average American in beef and pork over a lifetime. However, as I've always liked fried chicken, I would've had a good chance to ask for all the 1,423 chickens to sacrifice their lives, but even there my wife ruined things by adamantly refusing to allow the frying of anything in our house over these 43 years of our marriage. Meanwhile I have no memory of having eaten as many as 5,067 bananas, though I do like them, or the 12,888 oranges, which I don't like as much and hate to peel, though, aside from tea, my favorite beverage is one part orange juice to two parts of ginger ale.
When it comes to appliances, in my households so far there's been a total of 4 washing machines as compared to the average of 7, 4 of the 5 refrigerators, 4 of the 10 TV's, and only 2 of the 8 microwaves, while I've never lived in a house with even one of the 7 air-conditioners that we would have been expected to have acquired one after the other as average American consumers. It is, however, entirely possible that I've had exactly the average number of 15 computers, counting the early game machines, due to my love of buying unusual cases, such as a yellow one with lots of blue lights, and an all-clear acrylic one, and then filling them up with components..
Not counting my wife's activities, I have bought only two cars and three pickup trucks, two of the latter used. The average is 12 cars. I have moved only four times under my own responsibility and the same number when it wasn't. The average is 10. Despite having done four or five cross-country drives, once even all the way from D.C. to Fairbanks, Alaska and back again, I still doubt that I have gotten close to the 627,000 miles of driving, due to not driving at all till I was 33, and nearly imitating that same behavior, though for very different reasons, through the last 10 years.
Meanwhile, because I've been lucky, I haven't been to the doctors for nearly the 263 visits, nor have I swallowed anywhere close to the 37,320 pills, and as for the $52,975 average spent by men for clothes, I seem to have gotten by comfortably enough on only about a tenth of that amount.
All in all, I think the "Human Stain" was a very interesting way to see what a person has managed to accomplish in a lifetime, and if you put in your own numbers you will be glad to see how far along you've gotten in pulling your weight, which in a certain way is what that "footprint" amounts to!
I know, though, that this means that I have lagged miserably in contributing to the national economy, and therefore I should expect little or nothing from its benefits, and I understand and have always been comfortable with that. So I am puzzled by how much stuff has accrued to me nevertheless. I guess that is what getting close to just the life span of an average American does for a person Things just rain from the indiscriminate skies, unless you work really hard at escaping those showers.
The times gave me a great start in contributing to the "crime" of under-consumption. I was one of the first Depression Babies, and today's average of 3,796 disposable diapers were not needed to get me through my first 2-1/2 years. None existed in those days, and right there that saved what today's toddlers are busily requiring before they even know what is happening: 1,890 pounds of oil, 715 pounds of plastic, and 4-1/2 good-sized trees. Of course keeping my little carcass clean did take more water, but in those days there were far fewer people using the spigots.
As those times were during the Great Depression, when not nearly as much money was available for food or for anything else, I early had ingrained into me a habit that I suspect is almost unknown today, and that is always leaving my plate clean, and I've carried that through to this day. It also helped that for some reason eating was never at the top of my list of the most enjoyable things to do or even to talk about, whether or not I could afford even a little of the things I like most.
I am certain that I have not drunk enough milk or eaten enough ice cream to amount to 13,056 pints of milk, which the NGC people scrounged up from somewhere and neatly set close together into long rows on someone's lawn and thereby formed an army of pint boxes that extended onto the street and then marched down the street, covering the whole of it for a block or more. Nor have I eaten 19,826 eggs or enough sandwiches to require the average buying over all those years of 4,376 loaves of bread. I haven't even remotely downed 43,371 cans of soft drinks or 13,248 cans and bottles of beer, or 942 bottles of wine. I mainly like ginger ale, but that probably hasn't amounted to more than 2,000 half-gallon bottles. And I've never liked the taste of liquor, so the amounts of those fluids have hardly been enough to shower a cat.
I think I can also safely say that I've fallen 2 short of the 5 bulls and as many as 4 of the 6 hogs that are needed to keep the average American in beef and pork over a lifetime. However, as I've always liked fried chicken, I would've had a good chance to ask for all the 1,423 chickens to sacrifice their lives, but even there my wife ruined things by adamantly refusing to allow the frying of anything in our house over these 43 years of our marriage. Meanwhile I have no memory of having eaten as many as 5,067 bananas, though I do like them, or the 12,888 oranges, which I don't like as much and hate to peel, though, aside from tea, my favorite beverage is one part orange juice to two parts of ginger ale.
When it comes to appliances, in my households so far there's been a total of 4 washing machines as compared to the average of 7, 4 of the 5 refrigerators, 4 of the 10 TV's, and only 2 of the 8 microwaves, while I've never lived in a house with even one of the 7 air-conditioners that we would have been expected to have acquired one after the other as average American consumers. It is, however, entirely possible that I've had exactly the average number of 15 computers, counting the early game machines, due to my love of buying unusual cases, such as a yellow one with lots of blue lights, and an all-clear acrylic one, and then filling them up with components..
Not counting my wife's activities, I have bought only two cars and three pickup trucks, two of the latter used. The average is 12 cars. I have moved only four times under my own responsibility and the same number when it wasn't. The average is 10. Despite having done four or five cross-country drives, once even all the way from D.C. to Fairbanks, Alaska and back again, I still doubt that I have gotten close to the 627,000 miles of driving, due to not driving at all till I was 33, and nearly imitating that same behavior, though for very different reasons, through the last 10 years.
Meanwhile, because I've been lucky, I haven't been to the doctors for nearly the 263 visits, nor have I swallowed anywhere close to the 37,320 pills, and as for the $52,975 average spent by men for clothes, I seem to have gotten by comfortably enough on only about a tenth of that amount.
All in all, I think the "Human Stain" was a very interesting way to see what a person has managed to accomplish in a lifetime, and if you put in your own numbers you will be glad to see how far along you've gotten in pulling your weight, which in a certain way is what that "footprint" amounts to!
posted by Carl (aka Sofarsogoo) | 12:54 PM
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