Celebrate the Earth, Reduce Your Carbon Footprint

What’s your carbon footprint?  Do you know?  For those who haven’t heard, a carbon footprint is the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by a particular entity and/or individual.  You, your family, your household, your subdivision, your community, your city, your state, and yes, your country, all have distinct carbon footprints, and if you live in the US, chances are your carbon footprint is high, very high, which is to say, it’s not good…

To calculate your own carbon footprint, check out the Nature Conservancy’s carbon footprint calculator.  The Environmental Protection Agency [EPA] also has a Personal Emissions Calculator online that you can use. 

Personally, we are a household of 6 with a carbon emissions footprint of 65, while the US average for a household our size is 160!!  Several things we do that REALLY help reduce our footprint is having 1 car and flying very infrequently (and I do mean very, we’ve flown once in the last two years), using Energy Star appliances as we replace old ones, washing clothes in cold water, eating organic food that’s locally grown when in season, and recycling locally (our city has a great recycling and waste drop-off center).

The best way you can help reduce your carbon emissions is to cut back on your household energy consumption, and get rid of unnecessary cars!  Our society is notorious for accumulating things (and I’m as guilty as the rest, I have magazines I’ve collected going back to 1920 (before even my mother was born!)  But I’m trying to kick the habit, and you should too.

Did you know – regarding global oil consumption – the average American utilizes 25 barrels of oil per year, while the average Briton consumes only 11 barrels in the same period of time??  In China, they average 2 barrels of oil per year per individual consumer, but that number is bound to go up as China becomes a big player in the global market and it’s population gains a more substantial middle class.  Now, as a resident of a small midwestern town, I’m the first to admit that the normally touted “green” solutions to oil consumption are difficult to incorporate into an American lifestyle, unless you live in the heart of a major urban area.  Most of us have a 30-60 minute commute to work (in a car) and live in areas that couldn’t support a safe commute by bike, even if we could make it.  Also, cities like mine have a population density of 1300 people per square mile.  To put that into perspective, Los Angeles has 7873 people per square mile, Chicago has 12,747, and New York has close to 26,000.  Internationally, London has 11,192 people per square mile, Tokyo has 33,617, and Paris has a whopping 52,180 people per square mile .  So of course, the powers that be, living in the close confines of these cosmopolitan urban areas, are thinking to themselves – well, everyone should just walk or a ride a bike, save the planet, end of story.  Not quite.  Most Americans do not live in such close confines, even those who are counted as living in major urban cities (like New York and Chicago) may live in a distant suburb that doesn’t allow for the convenience of biking and/or walking as a way of reducing one’s carbon output, and therefore footprint…  The powers that be need to come up with some better alternatives, I’d say, if we’re going to get serious about reducing carbon outputs in America – hey, Who Killed the Electric Car…??  See it on cable, if you can, or rent it, excellent movie.  We could have been leaps and bounds ahead of where we are now, if only, if only…

Which takes us back to my household, we make the small sacrifice of actually planning our days and scheduling around each other which allows us to function on one car (and my husband works nights, and carpools to work, so that helps tremendously).  We will go up to two cars this fall when our oldest son goes to college (he’ll be going only two hours away, and so will emit not as much carbon as if he went out of state to school).

Also, if you’ve read my previous posts, we’ve dedicated one night a week, as “lights off” night.  Through the Spring, Summer, and Fall, we’ll spend that night doing family things together that don’t require electricty or indoor lights (we’re planning on putting solar lights out back).   And our family vacation this summer will be camping at the Lake in the local state-run park.

That’s our way of celebrating Earth Day 2008 (and it should be more than a Day for all of us by now, if you can’t read the writing on Mother Nature walls, then you should really go back to school!).