Terra's impending Ragnarok... and it looks like I'm Loki

This is a post I did for school, for my Principles of Sustainable Management class. The assignment was to take a look at our emissions impact using various carbon footprint calculators found on the web.

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This has been such a great discussion to follow... I've really enjoyed witnessing the revelations (and horror) of pretty much everyone in the class around their carbon footprint. It really impresses on me the magnitude of the problem we face when some of this country's most carbon-self-aware people are so collectively shocked by their estimated impact.

And I'm no exception. Like Shuli, Hunter, and others, I too am a road warrior. For over 5 years I've been traveling weekly (~100 flights/year) to cities 500-2000 miles away, due to my job as a consultant. Chicago->SF, Chicago->NJ, Chicago->Portland, SF->Portland, and now SF->SoCal. So as I opened the carbon calculators one by one, I felt myself cringe in anticipation of just what my results would be...

ecofoot.org tells me my lifestyle demands 30 acres of land... not so bad, only 6 acres over the national average. Of course, that means 6.8 planets to support everyone alive today if they lived like me. Yikes. 600% more than my share.

climatecrisis.net tells me my carbon impact is 18.1 tons/year. Hey, that's not so bad... of course, using the methodology many in the class have been using around that number being just 40% of my total, bring me to 45 tons/year... ok... that's worse.

fightglobalwarming.com... omg, this is the doozy. Their calculation pegs me at: 62.3 metric tons, 94% of that coming from my ~100 flights/year. Eeep. If that's 40% of the true number... my total is closer to 150 tons/year... that has to put me in the top 5 worst offenders in our class... The average energy-hog American only emits 8.4 tons, up to 20 using the 40% rule... that must put me in the top 1% of offenders on Earth. Humbling? Damn right it is.

So what am I doing about it? Well, I just moved to the city (SF), and actually live across the street from the CalTrain station. I did this because it gives me super-easy public transit access to the South Bay for work, and gives me easy bus access to the rest of the city. It's an expensive neighborhood, but I can offset the extra cost by getting rid of my car (anyone interested in a used 2005 Prius? only 18k miles!), since I can now bike/bus/train (and worst case /cab) everywhere in the city from within one block. There's a Safeway literally across the street, with a decent organic goods selection, so no more driving for groceries. I'm investigating moving into a LEEDs certified building this fall in the same neighborhood, and thanks to PoSUM, I now wash all my clothes cold (though I still machine dry).

Is all that enough? Hardly... they just ding that non-airline 6%. But the good news is this: my company is seriously starting an investigation into offsetting its carbon emissions. This is a company with tens of thousands of people who travel at the same or greater magnitude as I... I heard an estimate on the order of 2 BILLION km/year. The cost to offset that... would not be minor. Will anything come of this? Who knows...

But our leadership is interested in doing *something*... so I think my efforts will be most effective if I can work to encourage an enterprise-wide offsetting solution. If I can get my firm to do something for all 150000 employees.... that should offset my own carbon emissions for like, the rest of my life, right? =D