How many earths do you need?

I heard about this website a while back and checked it out the other day, and thought I'd share it with you guys. It asks you questions about your lifestyle and tells you how many earths it would take to sustain the human race if everybody lived like you...

http://myfootprint.org/

Its kind of an eye-opener. I guess there's two ways of looking at it. Either we reduce our individual impact, or we just make sure all those third world countries stay that way so we can keep up our awesome quality of life!

Everybody take it and post your scores! I take up 3.8 earths. The most I've heard so far is 11 earths from someone at work, anybody beat that?


On a related note, I was reading about the next generation of solar panels, and its pretty cool. The big reason that solar power hasn't caught on in every household has been pretty much the cost of the panels vs. the cost of traditional power supplies - it doesn't make a lot of sense right now unless you're planning on staying put for 15-20 years minimum. But with rising energy costs, the difference will be reducing quickly, and on top of that there have been major advancements in the last few years that could make solar power way, way cheaper (by not using expensive silicon), make it more efficient, and allow it to be put into different forms, like fabric, thin films that would go over windows or roofs, and even liquids that could eventually be used as paint!


Hopefully with the right people developing the technology, we could all be walking around with clothes that charge our cellphones, or driving around in hybrid cars that regenerate themselves while parked in the sun. If nothing else these technologies will make energy much cheaper and cleaner, and will capture it in endless supply.

So thats the good news. For the bad news see directly below about the nukes.