Why have the footprint numbers changed?
The footprint sizes reported here are in many cases larger than the ones given in Our Ecological Footprint (Wackernagel and Rees,1996) and in some other papers written by the authors. Rather than increased consumption, these figures have changed due to significant advances in the accounting methodology. Now we include sea space; consumption is documented more completely; and pasture and forest yields as well as CO2 absorption are based on more realistic assessments. [ back to the top ] Question 9 Ecological footprinting deals only with measuring the means of nature. this seems to ignore factors such as human health and the well-being of society. Arent these important? The ecological footprint does not measure sustainability as a whole. It captures only ecological and distributional aspects of it. It does not inform about peoples quality of life. Sustainability requires satisfying lives for all, within the means of nature. To measure to what extent people are satisfied with their lives,
