(Excerpt from my blog from my Pacific container ship adventure: ‘Trumped by Nature‘)
The ‘One Point Zero Referendum’ Vote day in Switzerland is less than two weeks away. In the next week I’ll become a virtual Swiss citizen, and in a blog I’ll take you through the thoughts / decision processes Swiss citizens will be dealing with. It will be a great learning opportunity, and also you should find it interesting thinking through the ‘what ifs’ should your country have a future vote / debate ‘on going’ for a One Point Zero, National vision or not?
Tomorrow this time I’ll be a land lubber again, and looking to maybe make New Zealand my future home. Given my One Point Zero, activism pursuit a key parameter for settling in a country would be its current One Point Zero status, and secondly whether the culture / way of life can assist me meet my personal One Point Zero, ‘way of life’, ambitions. The graph above shows the ‘Ecological Footprint Demand vs Bio Capacity Availability’ picture for New Zealand. (Thanks to Global Footprint Network for the graph. Get their free download and see what your country’s picture looks like. )
Surprise, surprise!! New Zealand is one of the few developed world countries with a sub One Point Zero profile. Ie New Zealand has more bio-capacity than its Nation’s footprints demand.
This is great news as a first check. Remember this is a total nation picture, so I need to dig a bit deeper to find out where I fit into the One Point Zero Gap: The difference between the largest Ecological Footprint group of people and the smallest Footprint group. Sort of similar to the Wealth Gap concept, but this based on Ecological Footprint rather than Wealth. (Read more here.)
Having been based on the less populated, South Island, on and off for the past 18 months now, I value the Nation’s strong sustainability and non-anthropocentric orientation that I have witnessed. I’ll now be assessing all this more closely and sharing with you my thoughts on New Zealand’s ability to meet my long term, personal One Point Zero aspiration, needs.