Carbon Footprint Calculators

Here are a few carbon footprint calculators, with the pluses and minuses of each:

Al Gore's site:

The advantages to this site are that it is easy to enter revised figures, it's easy to use, and it's fast. You can quickly see the effect of adding or subtracting one airline flight a year, or changing the model of car that you drive. One disadvantage is that there is nothing about consumption- the site only includes transportation (car and airplane) and home energy use. I do wonder how accurate it is- the site doesn't allow you to enter exact values. I suspect I may have gotten more credit for efficiency with my Prius than I really get.

EPA:

This site is also easy to use, and it suggests actions to take and calculates the reduction to your footprint that these actions would cause. However, it doesn't automatically recalculate if you change one of your entries- you have to refresh the entire page. Air travel is not included, and there is a lot of emphasis on recycling, but not on reducing use in the first place. And it doesn't include anything about the consumption of goods.

Cool California:

This was the most difficult site to use: you have to enter information on various screens, and on dial-up this was excruciatingly slow. It also uses your annual income to preset average values-- you then have to override if your figures are different. Though I appreciated that they were trying to account for consumption, I found the screens for goods and services to be confusing and hard to estimate. I also didn't like that they don't use the same format for all graphs. They use a vertical bar graph and a pie chart for your individual results, and use a horizontal bar graph for comparison to average state, country, and world consumption.

Atmosfair:

It has a nice graph comparing the carbon footprint of airline flights to car use, refrigerator output for a year, and the average annual emissions of an Indian. On the downside, the comparisons were all in euros and kilograms. The Al Gore site has a link to a flight calculator that is in "American."

All of the sites give widely diverging results, so it's hard to know really where you stand. I come out as way below average for Americans on the Al Gore site (again, doesn't include consumption), about 45% of average at the EPA site (which, remember, doesn't include air travel); and 42% of  an average Californian's emissions on the Cool California site.

Eco-Friendly Travel to Gathering

A couple of months ago, Robin M. had a post at What Canst Thou Say regarding balancing traveling in the ministry with striving to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. I've been thinking since then of how our monthly and yearly meetings might support us with such challenges. This is why I was excited to receive the announcement from Friends General Conference announcing the link for eco-friendly travel to this year's Gathering (June 28-July 5, Johnstown, Pennsylvania). Go here to indicate interest and get more information on a Quaker train, bus, bike trip, or carpool. One of the things I have always admired and appreciated about Gathering is how helpful they are with travel arrangements for those of us who fly across country to be at Gathering. I am so pleased to see more eco-friendly forms of travel get this same loving attention.

This all has me wondering anew what our monthly, quarterly, and yearly meetings might do. What if meetings offered to pay whatever extra it might cost to take the train (for sleeping accommodations, for childcare for extra days away from home)? What if those traveling in the ministry only flew one direction, instead of both? What if we paid for carbon offsets for those who simply can't see their way clear to travel any other way but by airplane? What if Quaker employers allowed their employees the time off to take the bus or the train instead of a plane?

There is tremendous value to traveling among Friends, both for those called to ministry and for those of us simply called to fellowship. We need to talk with one another, worship together, play together. Our meetings do not thrive in isolation and the provincialism that can result from such isolation. Since there is such value to our gathering as Friends, shouldn't our meetings labor to support means of travel that allow us to live more fully our testimonies?

Reasons to take the Train

I've resolved to take the train when traveling instead of flying, especially when I'm traveling on winter or summer break. Here's why it's no sacrifice:

• No one pats you down, paws through your belongings, or makes you take off your shoes when you get off the train.



• I can take my knitting needles and scissors and no one cares.



• I sleep well on a train (at least in a sleeper). I don't even sleep well at home, so this is a big deal.



• I can see where I am. Often the scenery is beautiful, and even when it's not, it's usually at least interesting.



• No middle seats. I can knit without continuously bumping the person next to me.



• Good food in the dining car and/or less strict baggage limits mean you can take a cooler with your favorite food.



• You meet interesting people in the observation car and over meals, but you aren't trapped next to them for hours on end like on a plane.



• Wine and cheese tasting for sleeper car passengers-- and no one has to be the designated driver!



• You can walk around.



• It's less noisy than planes or buses, and less motion-sickness inducing.



• Train stations are generally less chaotic than airports.



• Enforced relaxation: no chores, no work, nothing to do but read, visit, eat, sleep, listen to music, and watch the world go by.

Reduced Energy, Increased Light

We had a thought-provoking session after meeting for worship last week. Karen Street has been facilitating monthly sessions on climate change. At the latest session, those of us who had turned in at least some data got individual printouts that showed our personal carbon emissions. It also compared us with the average person in meeting, in the Bay Area, in California, and in the US. We spent some time considering if we could individually commit to reducing our emissions by 10%, and what sort of minute we'd like to see proposed at Pacific Yearly Meeting.

I find committing to 10% reduction to be problematic, in that I have no idea what numeric impact my actions would make. For me, committing to specific, useful actions makes more sense. I'm writing about these in part to keep myself accountable. It's so easy to let things slip. I also hope that I'm not alone, that there's a community of folk somewhere in the middle between the environmentally pure and the environmentally, er, disinterested, and that we can help each other out.

So, what I am committed to continuing or starting:
Reduced home energy use. This is to be accomplished by turning things off when I'm not using them (I really should be better at this than I am), taking short showers rather than ones that drain the hot water tank, and hanging the wash during the warmer months. In the winter, I wear a lot of clothes to delay putting on the heat as long as I can. And it's a nice incentive to think that not only is reading better for my brain than TV, but it uses less energy! I'm not saying I'm giving up TV. I like TV. It enables me to get a lot of knitting done. But I'm trying to be a bit more mindful about flipping on the tube.

A minimum of one car-free day a week. I've been doing this for a while now. If I don't manage one week, I try to make it up the next. This should include taking the bus to meeting, but I am not managing to get out of the house early enough these days. This is probably a sign that I am too busy.

Increased carpooling. Now that I have a Prius, I volunteer for carpool driving duty a lot more than I used to. My goal for the next school year is to carpool at least once a week to work. I also plan to start a work contact list to facilitate both carpooling and communication in general.

Reduced air travel. I typically take one or two East coast round-trips a year, plus one or two shorter trips. I'm not saying I won't fly again, but I plan to do most of my travel by Amtrak. If I can't manage round trip on the train, I'll at least aim for it in one direction.

More thoughtful consumption. This is the hardest area for me. I am definitely not a plain Friend. I love new clothes, I adore shopping, I like new toys. I really do. I have a hard time separating frugality from deprivation, so I tend to alternate brief periods of tightfistedness with longer bouts of mindless spending. I rarely have a clue about how much is enough. I'm trying to retrain myself, both for economic and environmental reasons. I try to do most of my grocery shopping at the farmer's market, and limit my trips to Trader Joe's to once a month. I throw away the clothing catalogs after I've looked at them. If there's something I really want, it's there online. I try to only see movies in theaters and eat meals out with friends. I enjoy free "shopping sprees" at the library and at Children's Book Project (free books for kids at my school!).