My own personal carbon impact
Found this link over at Pandagon and so of course I had to try out the carbon impact calculator.
I was not surprised to find that my personal carbon dioxide impact is smaller than average, but was very surprised to find that it's so much smaller than average: well under a third of the national average carbon emissions of 15,000 pounds per year. Am I some kind of fanatic? Probably, by most people's standards. I don't drive a car, I don't travel very much by plane, and my little house is very well insulated so it doesn't cost very much to heat or keep reasonably cool.
The carbon calculator didn't include a way to include use of public transportation for daily commuting, though I don't think that mine is egregious; I take the bus maybe three round trips a week at a total for a total of about fifteen miles. And a couple of 2.5- or 3-mile cab rides a month. I live close to my workplace on purpose.
The calculator also didn't include stuff like lawn mowers & leaf blowers, etc. I don't have anything like that, but I do have a lawn & I pay a guy to mow it.
If I wanted to be really smug reduce my carbon impact (and my contribution to the neighborhood noise problem) any further -- and if I had a shed in the backyard where I could store such things -- I'd get one of these nifty reel mower units. I like them because I love the smell of freshly mown grass. I don't like the smell or noise of lawn mowers quite so much. Maybe I could keep it on the back porch. They're not even very expensive, and I feel sure that it's pretty good exercise to walk back & forth across the lawn a bazillion times. I'm all about free fitness opportunities.
OK, OK, I'll get one when I buy a house.
I'm not buying anything at all until I buy a house. Except maybe food.
7 comments:
My consumption is HIGH and I'm so embarrassed. I fly too much and my daily commute has me clocking 100 miles a day (unfortunately, there is no public transport where I live).
I suppoze I should stop flying back and forth from LA, and someday perhaps try to convince my boss to let me telecommute. Eventually. Shoot.
sweetie, if you get a house we will GIVE you the reel mower that is languishing in our basement. Prolly needs a little sharpening, but I have that dremel tool I bought on ebay!!!!
I'd sure love to telecommute. But then I'd never leave the house at all.
When I fist got the gig I'm working now, I had a 75-mile daily commute. I moved after about four months. It drove me nuts mainly on account of the traffic, but it's always seemed strange to me not to live near where I work. I could certainly live closer to work than I do, but I love my neighborhood too much for that.
julie -- I told you you'd find a million more uses for that thing!
If you find a reel mower that works, please tell me. Oddly enough, before reading your post today I posted a question on my company's e-bulletin board asking whether anyone knew of a reel mower that cuts grass, rather than bending most of it over and leaving it intact while cutting an occasional clump here or there. I don't want to use the evil power mower, but dang.
Apparently the reel mower works best if you mow very frequently, and also you're supposed to overlap when mowing by about 50% so that ultimately you go both back and forth over each strip.
Yeah, it takes longer, but you're not tormenting yourself or the neighbors with the noise the whole time when you do it. And what have you got but time, anyway?
I used a reel mower for a while on our teeny yard in Minneapolis, and it worked great if (and only if) you didn't let it get too long between mowings.
And you've gotta keep them pretty sharp.
My dad just told me he saw the Al Gore movie and got rid of his power lawn mower and snow blower.
He loves that damn snowblower.
We tried the reel mower, too, for all the right reasons: quiet, environmentally friendly, good exercise. But our yard is HUGE and full of the sort of noxious weeds that stand up to repeated passes with a reel mower, no matter how sharp. We finally had to buy a gas mower, and what's worse, only evil Wal-Mart carried the model we wanted. Our reel mower is languishing in the basement. Good luck with your good intentions.
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