How To Save the Earth
In honor of Earth Day, I would like to share what I did yesterday. I finished reading The Weather Makers, by Tim Flannery. A scary book, at times alarmist but most often a sobering look at the likely impacts of global warming on the natural and human world. Mr. Flannery says that the world must cut its CO2 emissions by 70% by 2050 in order to stabilize world climate, avoid a mass extinction of half of life on Earth, and prevent widespread disruptions to human society. I then went online to calculate my Ecological Footprint, or the amount of acres and resources on Earth required to support my lifestyle. The best I did was 2.9 Earths, which means I am definitely taking up more than my fair share. My car-less girlfriend, by comparison, is living an almost sustainable lifestyle already.
It turns out, for all my green pretensions, I use the average amount of resources for an American. I then decided to do something big: cut my own CO2 emissions by 70% over the next three years. Believe it or not, but the process is actually relatively painless. In the meantime, before I achieve my target goals, I will be reducing my carbon emissions by purchasing emission credits at either carbonfund.org or terrapass.org for about $50 a year. Saving the world is cheaper than you might think: let's see how little it will cost me over the next three years.
According to Flannery, replacing regular lightbulbs in my house will save 10%--check, already did that, so I am on my way! I don't have control over my gas or electric bill right now, but when I move in August, I am going to make sure that I am on a Green Power option with my local utility. If 20% of my electricity is produced by renewable energy and not coal, that's 20% less carbon dioxide emissions--potentially more since coal is a such a dirty-burning, inefficient fuel. Now, if I didn't rent, I could make further energy savings by buying more efficient appliances (20% savings) or even buying a solar water heater (30% savings) that would pay for itself in two years.
So, we are up to a 30% reduction after I bought expensive lightbulbs (that will pay for themselves in two years) and increased my electricity bill by $2-3 a month. Soon, I will have a roommate, and the calculator at carbonfund.org says that will save me 10-25% in electricty and natural gas consumption. Let's be conservative and call that a further 10% reduction, leaving me at 40% less. Now the biggest single producer of carbon dioxide in my life is my car, a 1996 Jeep Cherokee, a manual transmission, which gets 19 mpg in the city and 23 in the country--what you might call a good SUV or a below-average car. I bought it on the cheap years ago, before I really thought about global warming, and I drive it an average number of miles each year--about 11,500. It only took 3 or 4 tons of carbon dioxide to produce my car, but it emits (according to terrapass.org) about 11,171 pounds of CO2 a year, a huge amount. If I were able to reduce that amount by 30%, I would be at my target goal of a 70% reduction in personal CO2 emissions.
Enter the Honda Fit (or the Toyota Prius, or any number of new, fuel-efficient cars), which costs $15,000 or so and gets 31 mpg (city) and 37 city, an improvement of about 30%. I will definitely need a new car in a couple years, and the Fit is a cheap, quality car that I would like. So I will send Moira (my Jeep) off to retirement, save money on my ever-climbing gas bill, and meet my goal of a 70% reduction in carbon dioxide! YAY!!
Could you do it?
(Interesting aside: if I drive 1500 miles less a year to boot, I will save another 1500 lbs of carbon dioxide--that's another 10% drop. And really, that's just a little more walking to the store every week)
It turns out, for all my green pretensions, I use the average amount of resources for an American. I then decided to do something big: cut my own CO2 emissions by 70% over the next three years. Believe it or not, but the process is actually relatively painless. In the meantime, before I achieve my target goals, I will be reducing my carbon emissions by purchasing emission credits at either carbonfund.org or terrapass.org for about $50 a year. Saving the world is cheaper than you might think: let's see how little it will cost me over the next three years.
According to Flannery, replacing regular lightbulbs in my house will save 10%--check, already did that, so I am on my way! I don't have control over my gas or electric bill right now, but when I move in August, I am going to make sure that I am on a Green Power option with my local utility. If 20% of my electricity is produced by renewable energy and not coal, that's 20% less carbon dioxide emissions--potentially more since coal is a such a dirty-burning, inefficient fuel. Now, if I didn't rent, I could make further energy savings by buying more efficient appliances (20% savings) or even buying a solar water heater (30% savings) that would pay for itself in two years.
So, we are up to a 30% reduction after I bought expensive lightbulbs (that will pay for themselves in two years) and increased my electricity bill by $2-3 a month. Soon, I will have a roommate, and the calculator at carbonfund.org says that will save me 10-25% in electricty and natural gas consumption. Let's be conservative and call that a further 10% reduction, leaving me at 40% less. Now the biggest single producer of carbon dioxide in my life is my car, a 1996 Jeep Cherokee, a manual transmission, which gets 19 mpg in the city and 23 in the country--what you might call a good SUV or a below-average car. I bought it on the cheap years ago, before I really thought about global warming, and I drive it an average number of miles each year--about 11,500. It only took 3 or 4 tons of carbon dioxide to produce my car, but it emits (according to terrapass.org) about 11,171 pounds of CO2 a year, a huge amount. If I were able to reduce that amount by 30%, I would be at my target goal of a 70% reduction in personal CO2 emissions.
Enter the Honda Fit (or the Toyota Prius, or any number of new, fuel-efficient cars), which costs $15,000 or so and gets 31 mpg (city) and 37 city, an improvement of about 30%. I will definitely need a new car in a couple years, and the Fit is a cheap, quality car that I would like. So I will send Moira (my Jeep) off to retirement, save money on my ever-climbing gas bill, and meet my goal of a 70% reduction in carbon dioxide! YAY!!
Could you do it?
(Interesting aside: if I drive 1500 miles less a year to boot, I will save another 1500 lbs of carbon dioxide--that's another 10% drop. And really, that's just a little more walking to the store every week)
posted by Tree Texan at 10:15 AM
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