Running horizontally along the graph, is ecological footprint, which is a measure of how much resources we use and how much pressure we put on the planet.

And this is the trend in well being over that time, a small increase, but this is the trend in ecological footprint.

Lots of credit card debt, huge environmental footprints, and perhaps not coincidentally, our happiness levels flat lined over the same 50 years.

Unfortunately, while this society is, without a doubt, the most prosperous and dynamic the world has ever created, it's got some major, major flaws.

It's the diapers, wipes and everything that you need to take care of this issue.

like repair of atolls, or reclamation of parts of a city that are damaged by water.

And again, when you start seeing that kind of embrace, and you start looking at them leading their rural lifestyle with a very, very small footprint and moving into an urban lifestyle with a much higher footprint, it starts to become very sobering.

So I'm going to suggest that less stuff and less space are going to equal a smaller footprint.

There are many science based analyses of this, but they all draw the same conclusion that we're living beyond our means.

Smaller space is going to make for smaller utilities save some more money there, but also a smaller footprint.