Eco - footprints, carbon footprint?

Two big buzzwords in the media at the moment are eco-footprint and carbon-footprint.

But they are just buzzwords with no real meaning for most people. Take the eco-footprint. We have this idea that ideally we should be consuming resources no bigger than the plot of land we own. Sounds sensible? But it misses the point.

We should not be consuming everything in a set area. Instead, we should be looking to "close
the loop". Every input that comes into our home is usually consumed and then exits usually as waste. We need to be looking to use those inputs more efficiently and where it might normally be a waste, instead it's fed back into our homes as another input.

For example, all those vegetable wastes can become food for the chickens, or the compost heap.
Another example, alter our homes to better capture the sun during the lower winter sun, and insulating the house to prevent heat loss.

This really is just common sense, but most of us aren't thinking this way - I wonder why!! :-)