The Ecological Footprint Caused by Human Activities

Million years have passed since the creation of our world began, the world population is increasing as the needs of an individual are increasing as well. There are much of changes that had happened the past years. Day after day, the demand is heavily increasing and our world is changing in very fast pace. Climate change has been the greatest challenge our world is facing today. It is caused by the greenhouse gasses trapped in the atmosphere and carbon dioxide (CO2) as the most common greenhouse gas that is a product of burning fuels and solid wastes. These days, the carbon emission is increasing caused by human activities and industrial practices (Amonsio, et al, 2012). Human activity has evolved to much enhanced way like making some things complicated but very useful to the daily living of individuals.

However, as the human activity increases as well as the use of the natural resources, the resources available were set to limitations to satisfy every individual (Zheng, 2007). From global, regional and national to city level, awareness was made (See, et al, 2014). To attain the effects of activities done by people every day, the College of Forestry and Environmental Science in Central Mindanao University (CMU) has developed studies regarding this matter through Ecological Footprinting (EF). This study was conducted in the said college to estimate the bioproductive expanse for the college’s annual operations (Medina & Catalon, 2015). It is debated that even the well-educated individuals are causing environmental issues today which is very alarming, how much more the people who have no background to what really is happening to the world now (Bruno, et al, 2016). EF is used to enlighten people regarding the sustainable policies. It is to estimate the land used by institutions for their daily consumption and activities. Together with the biocapacity, the activities are measured to know the limitation of earth’s capacity of supporting activities (Medina, 2015). CMU showcases the commitment to sustainable and have actually received awards for becoming eco-friendly school. However, it does not stop at receiving awards. In fact, numerous of environmental issues are still visible in CMU and the lack of measurement as to what should be implemented and done need to be addressed to achieve sustainability (Bruno, et al, 2016).

This study demonstrated how EF can be a good use for educational tool as well as to aid policy and decision making in academic institutions. However, the lack of consistency of measuring EF components, satisfying the comparison of EF among other institutions is difficult.

To address these issues, innovations must be done to use EF in academic setting to predict ecological impact due to climate change so that the basic consumption of the people including food, wood, fuel, etc will be attained and sustainable development will be achieved.