Six glowing pillars encode the classic footprint components in global hectares (gha) per person: carbon (grey — forest area needed to absorb your CO₂), cropland (yellow-green), grazing land (light green), forest products (dark green), fishing grounds (blue) and built-up land (orange). Each slider re-weights those pillars in real time using the same rough proportions real footprint calculators use — diet drives cropland/grazing/fishing, transport and energy mix drive carbon (the largest single share worldwide), and consumption drives built-up land and forest products. The green disc on the ground marks the fixed reference: ~1.6 gha of biocapacity actually regenerates per person on Earth today. The two orbiting globes make the gap visible directly — the green one is always sized to "1 Earth"; the orange one grows or shrinks to match however many Earths your current mix of sliders would require if everyone lived that way. Small red cubes spiral outward once your footprint crosses that 1.6 gha line — each one is "land we'd need but don't have."
footprint = carbon + cropland + grazing + forest + fishing + built_up (gha/person)
Earths needed = footprint / biocapacity (biocapacity ≈ 1.6 gha/person, fixed)
- Diet — vegan/plant-forward (left) uses far less cropland-for-feed, grazing and fishing than a meat-heavy diet (right).
- Transport & travel — walking/cycling/public transit (left) vs. frequent driving and flying (right); this mostly moves the carbon pillar, the biggest slice of the real global footprint (~60%).
- Energy mix — a renewable-heavy grid and home (left) vs. a fossil-fuel-heavy one (right) — the second biggest carbon lever.
- Goods & consumption — how much you buy, build and throw away; drives built-up land and forest products (paper, timber, packaging).
Real-world relevance: today's global average footprint is roughly 1.7× the planet's biocapacity — this is exactly what "Earth Overshoot Day" measures, the calendar date each year when humanity has used a year's worth of what the biosphere can renew.