Slate.com just started a new running feature on reducing one's carbon emissions. You take a quiz to establish a baseline, then each week they provide advice on how to reduce your emissions. They're going to give 500 t-shirts to people who reduce emissions by 20%. (by which I mean, 500 people will get t-shirts. Not that people will get 500 t-shirts. What would you even do with 500 t-shirts? I guess you could use them to insulate your house and reduce your heating bills.)
The challenge seems like a nice idea but skewed against people who already care at all about the issue. We're no paragons of environmentalism -- far from it -- but we already do almost everything they mentioned in the intro article.
Then again, the first week's challenge is about transportation. Where I definitely could do a better job. I do a lot of driving because of the art car events, and I've been thinking about buying a more efficient car when I can afford it (unfortunately several years from now). But their action items are mostly impossible for me:
Drive 65 miles per hour instead of 75. I already do this.
No more than 30 seconds of idling is needed to warm up a car, even on cold winter days. Do people warm up their cars? I thought that was only for old cars that wouldn't run otherwise. In any case, I don't.
Could you walk or bike to do that nearby errand? No. There are no errands near enough to walk, my road isn't safe for bikes, and I generally run errands on the way home from work anyway.
Could you carpool or commute by mass transit—even just one day a week? No. My hours are too odd for carpooling, and mass transit mostly doesn't exist where I need to go.
On relatively short trips—Boston to New York, for example—could you take the train instead of flying? I rarely travel on a train route, and I rarely fly. Most of my trips are art car events, where I have to bring my car for obvious reasons. I could take the train up to DE, but that would nearly double the length of the trip. And I'm usually going up for Thanksgiving and have a carful of casseroles and etc.
The only thing on the list that I can do is keep my tires full of air. I'm pretty bad about that. But I doubt I'm going to reduce carbon emissions by 20% just with that.
3 Comments
I've been feeling guilty about being a single-occupancy vehicle lately, but I'm like you- already following those other suggestions. The only people I know that I could carpool with either work different hours, or are older men who would just be creepy to ride with. And after 6 months of being a s-o-v after 3 years of riding the bus to work, I'm beginning to understand the allure of 20 minutes with just me and NPR and no weirdos.
Saving energy is for chumps. Why? So the guy driving the Hummer can keep humming longer. Saving is a misnomer, what you are actually doing is leaving more for the other guy to waste. I say use it all up, then we'll have no choice but to find other ways.
God i'm so pessimistic these days.
Raynor, you're right, driving is the area where I could do a lot better. But in the week when Slate covers household energy use, I'll be surprised if they come up with anything major that we're not already doing. And we're not that mindful of the environment!
In fact, what we are is cheap. (at least, I am.) Our cheapness leads to decisions that coincidentally have environmental benefits. Like keeping the heat low, using the a/c as little as possible, energy efficient washing machine, never watering the lawn, etc. If wasting energy cost less, that's probably what I'd be doing.
Paul: um, okay, I'll get right on that. .. :)