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How to Measure Behavior From an Ecological Perspective

Measuring the ecological impact of a person's behavior can be a challenge. The effect on the natural environment of particular actions is difficult to quantify because of the number of variables and complexities of interactions in the real world. A qualitative analysis resulting in a general sense of whether someone is helping or harming the planet is much easier to achieve. For example, riding a bicycle causes less damage than driving a car, although determining exact percentages would be difficult to measure.

Instructions

Measure Car Use
- 1
  Determine the amount of energy and resources used and the amount of waste produced by a particular action. For example, the environmental damage that is done by driving a car can be determined by finding information about its manufacture, gas mileage and disposal.
- 2
  Examine a person's behavior to find out how frequently he engages in the activity you are studying. To use the example of a car, a person's behavior could be analyzed based on the number of miles he drives every year, the size of the car he is driving and the gas mileage that it gets.
- 3
  Analyze how efficiently the car is used, for example by combining in-town trips and errands into one journey rather than taking the car out multiple times each day. Include the number of times that the car is used for trips that could be easily accomplished on foot or by bicycle.
- 4
  Take into account other aspects of car use that are peripheral to an individual's driving: road construction, habitat fracturing, urban sprawl and declining air quality. These are elements of car culture that are difficult to quantify because they are collectively caused by millions of cars.
Measure Home-Based Activities
- 5
  Determine the environmental impact of an individual's home life by measuring both her benign and beneficial activities. Measure the amount of trash that is produced by the household on a weekly basis, including the percentage of recyclable material that is actually recycled and the percentage that is sent to the landfill.
- 6
  Measure the temperature that the house is kept at, compared to what is generally accepted as an adequate temperature. Houses that are kept warmer than necessary in winter, or air-conditioned to temperatures that are colder than necessary in summer, use up tremendous amounts of extra energy.
- 7
  Add in the many small household activities which together can increase or decrease a family's environmental impact: rechargeable batteries and compact fluorescent light bulbs, low-flush toilets, Energy Star-rated efficient appliances and vegetables grown in the back yard, reducing the need for imported food.

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