Meet Stephen

[Today's blog post was written by Stephen Temple, student intern for CSI/Operations at IWU. Stephen is a senior studying business, and he hopes to become a consultant after graduating in the spring of 2011.]

Photo from www.myfootprint.org

Today was the end to a very interesting first week for me working with the sustainability division of Operations and Facilities Planning at here at IWU. Upon arriving I was asked to take a test unlike any other I have ever set eyes on. This test was done online at a website called www.myfootprint.org, and is basically an assessment as to how large one’s ecological footprint is (how environmentally friendly one is), and gives steps after assessing this to help reduce the impact of your footprint on earth.

 One of the most unique things about the website itself, was how they rated one’s “eco-friendliness.” When I was done with the assessment, instead of telling some meaningless figures regarding my progress, they instead used practical terms that applied to me by listing how many “earths” we as humans would need to sustain all the consumption that would occur if everyone in the world used as much energy and resources as I have been.

My number was 4.72 earths when tested against how I used resources at Indiana Wesleyan. However, it 6.63 earths when I calculated it with time when spent at my home in Nebraska. When I was done with it though, I was not extremely pleased with my results so I looked on the website for other things that I could possibly do to reduce my individual footprint. One of the most convicting things was my lack to conserve water during my end-of-day showers when it’s used more for relaxing than hygiene. I saw the impact of these actions though, and committed to stop. Also, I realized I need to shop more at organic stores. Doing this not only keeps our earth cleaner, but also, more nutritional forms of food are there and so this in turn keeps our bodies cleaner as well.

So by now I assume you realize that the primary reason I am writing today is to encourage all of you to go on myfootprint’s site and see where you are at regarding your own impact. See how much of the earth’s resources you are using. See how you stack up against the average consumption in other third world nations. And through us all doing this, maybe we will even see beyond the results, finally able to catch a glimpse of the bigger picture. And maybe, just maybe, we could see this not as a measure of what we have been using, but what we have been taking, and who we have been taking from in order that we maintain the lifestyles that we have chosen to live.

Matt. 25: 37-40 - "Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'

"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’”