My Multi-National Ecology

My ecological history begins in Jamaica. This was were my parents were born. My mother came to New York City because she wanted to do her masters degree in America because she did not like the educational system of Jamaica. As you probably know Jamaica was once a colony of Britain. They imposed their educational system on Jamaica, but Jamaica’s schools are not as good as British schools. It’s difficult to go to school there for some people because schooling is expensive, and you have to pass a test made in Britain and graded in Britain in order to get into America’s equivalent of high school. I’m not sure why my father came here, other than because he wanted to make more money.
Life in America is a lot different than life in Jamaica, although America is the richer country the people in Jamaica lead healthier life styles. All fruits are grown locally, and sometimes they’re grown in people’s own backyards. Fast food there is seen as a delicacy because eating home cooked meals with your family is a very important part of life. My family has become the polar opposite of this. Everyone usually eats out before they get home, and sitting down at the table with the family is reserved for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter.
If everybody lived the way that I do we would need 6.9 planets. At first this discovery left me speechless, but as we spoke about this during class it made more sense. Although I live 15 minutes away from school it takes me an hour and twenty minutes to get to school by public transportation. It takes so long because the B82 takes the least direct route, but I have no other option because that is the only bus that goes to school from where I live. Besides this I also travel during the weekends because the neighborhood I live in is very boring so my friends and I travel a long time to get to Manhattan to go to movie theaters or restaurants.
The other reason why my ecological footprint is so large is because I eat meat with every meal I eat. I know that this is very rare because in most countries they eat meat once or twice a week, but I eat it for breakfast, for lunch, and for dinner... even for snacks.
In addition to the amount of meat included in each meal the foods in my fridge come from all over the world. The Madras curry powder in my cabinet is a product of India. The gram farina in the curry is from Bengal and it is packaged in Canada. The Folgers coffee I drink is made by a company in Ohio. The canister was made from recycled materials and the coffee plant was grown in South America. The cheese in my fridge contains cow milk, milk fat and salt enzymes. The wrapper is from China and the cheese itself is processed in Ohio. My tuna is grown in Ecuador and is packaged in Pennsylvania with aluminum from China. My Toasted Oats are made in America, in New Jersey.