21 Ways I Reduced My Carbon Footprint

Change takes time. Here below is the list of my path from what was not measured, but likely a typical carbon footprint (around 20 tons per year for an American) to a smaller carbon footprint today. I think I'm down to around 6 tons a year. Goal is about 2 tons per capita worldwide. Below is how I progressed over the last 20 years.

Today minus 20 years
1. Bought a fixer-upper house in dense urban area 5 blocks from subway.
2. Vacation locally (most of the time)
T- 18 years
3. Stopped eating meat (most of the time). Cook most meals from scratch.
T- 15 years
4. Enrolled children in local schools.
T- 14 years
5. Emphasis on Christmas & birthday presents that were consumable or practical.
T- 12 years
6. Installed automatic setback thermostat (55 degrees at night, 65 daytime). Knit a lot of sweaters for whole family.
T-10 years
7. Didn’t buy second car, used carsharing (Zipcar)
T- 9 years
8. Husband got a local job, now commutes by bicycle 100% of the time.
T- 8 years
9. Increase emphasis on second hand or hand-me-down for toys, books, clothes, bikes.
T- 7 years
10. Stopped eating fish (except sardines, I love them so).
T- 5 years
11. Kids stop asking to be driven to school on cold, wet or snowy days because answer is usually no.
T- 4 years
12. Switched all light bulbs to CFLS.
13. Turn temperature of water heater down to ‘warm’.
T- 3 years
14. More carpooling (GoLoco).
15. Greater commitment to biking for errands.
16. Finally put insulation in roof.
17. Wash laundry in cold water and dry clothes on line (my husband getting me over my greatest hypocrisy.) Reduced summer utility bill by 50%.
T- 2 years
18. Bought a farm share at local farm for produce.
19. Curiously also plant small kitchen garden.
20. Started driving the speed limit. On highways too (that’s right).
T- 1 year
21. Selected “green” supplier of grid electricity offered by our utility (wind farm in upstate NY, only 10% more expensive).
Future:
22. Replace inefficient appliances with way more efficient ones when they finally die. Front loading washing machine, dishwasher, refridgerator. Insulate and seal old house more, replace a few more old windows, solar hot water on roof, find or build more efficient housing.

This effort will be on-going. My biggest challenge, like environmental evangelists around me, is my air travel. I do a lot of it. I keep track using Dopplr, but I don’t believe in offsets (see CheatNeutral for a beautiful explanation of why).

What's your plan or path? What other good ideas?

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Rock Band Tours by Bike

Great music, great idea, and great execution. Check out this 4 minute video. As Kipchoge Spence, the person behind this idea, wrote me:

"In 2007, the Ginger Ninjas became the first band in the history of rock and roll to tour by bicycle, unsupported by automobile. On a 5000 mile odyssey from their home in Northern California to the pyramids of Southern Mexico, they promoted transportation cycling while also exploring the frontiers of pedal-generated electricity, using their own bikes to power a hyper-efficient sound system. The audience took turns getting on stage to pedal the bikes to make the sound, taking crowd participation to a new level. Originally conceived as a one-time adventure/statement/experiment, the band became addicted to low-impact touring, and now does so exclusively.

The Ginger Ninjas' mobile human-power stage is the first of its kind in history. Coupling super efficient digital amplifiers, lightweight components, and generators attached to working bicycles (as opposed to purpose-built stationary bikes), the system allows a band to play off-grid anywhere, wall outlet or no, and to also carry the system to a gig on the same bicycles (Xtracycle sport utility bicycles). This enables a new kind of completely self-sufficient bicycle touring, sans automobile support. On the band's most recent tour, the system and touring style enabled them to avoid generating close to 60,000 pounds of CO2, or 95% of what a similar sized band creates in a similar tour."

We're hoping GoLoco can partner with them on their next tour in the U.S.

http://www.gingerninjas.com/
great 4 minute video describing 2007 tour

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What Does It Cost to Drive?

The IRS formally increased the number it uses for cost per mile car travel, from 50.5 cents per mile, to 58.5 cents per mile. The question for drivers is -- are you sharing that cost or sucking it up all by yourself?

I recently did an analysis of AAA 2007 cost data for driving. I wanted to understand how much the rising cost of gas is actually changing the real costs of driving. [These aren't quite real costs since they don't include any of the externalities associated with driving like global warming, protection of oil resources, asthma, car accidents, among others.] AAA numbers are averaged over five years, assuming you own the car for the first five years of its life.

Today, with gas at $4 a gallon, looking at the two extremes of car types, it costs

$18.60/day for a small sedan ($6,795/year)
$31.00/day for an SUV or pickup truck ($11,309/year)

This covers travel of 41 miles per day (15,000 miles per year), average for Americans.

When -- not if -- gas goes to $5 a gallon, it'll be

$21.66/day for a small sedan ($7,906/year)
$33.32/day for an SUV or pickup truck ($12,161/year)

What was particularly interesting to me is how the rising price of gas has transformed the variable costs of driving. When gas was $1/gallon, it was only 9% of the total cost of owning and operating a small sedan. Today, at $4/gallon, gas ranges between 28 and 30% of the cost of operating a car. When it is at $5/gallon, that'll be 32-35%. With such high variable costs, people are really having to think twice and three times about when and how they drive. [see blog entry on changed driving behaviors]

This is so much money!!!

Back in 2006, 17% of household income went toward cars. I ask myself: if the median household income in the US is $48,000/year, what percent of income is going to car transportation today? A recent study found that in households with cars, they own on average 2.28 cars per household. Now comes some very murky and suspect assumptions, just to get it into the ballpark. Those households are unlikely to have 2.28 new cars, so what if we just round down and say 2 cars that are 0-5 years old are going to stand in for 2.28 cars of unknown age. And that households will have one big car and one little car, which is kind of like saying they have 2 average-sized cars.

OK, if we accept these bad assumptions, the answer to the question:

What percent of household income is going today to car transportation when gas is $4/gallon?

[drumroll]

38%

wow.

Another way to look at this is to use a a report written in September 2005 by Mark Singer of the Consumer Federation of America. His estimates of gas prices for 2005 were about $1.80/gallon. For prices found between 1995-2003 (his baseline) he found little elasticity in demand. Here is his table:



We know that $4/gallon seems to have been a tipping point for demand. And $4 is more than double $1.80. But what if we imagine that people today are spending about double on gas, taking into account some reductions in demand? That would put low income groups spending 20% of their incomes just on the gas.

Washington, I think we have a problem.

Americans need options to traveling around by car all by themselves. Some of those options can happen fast (GoLoco! and for those lucky enough to live in cities feet, bike, transit, train); some will take longer (changing where we choose to live, work, shop, creating dense mixed use communities, adding more transit of all kinds, reducing fossil fuel dependence on all motorized modes).

Next Mr. President: are you listening?

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You can't spend it if you don't have it

There was an article in the Boston Globe today about Gas costs forcing drivers to cut back.

"Until then, Stone said, she hadn't thought much about gas prices or filling the tank of her Acura, which she did a least twice a week. Now Stone, 55, a teacher, limits hergas budget to one fill-up or no more than $25 a week. She carefully plans her travel, sticking to the shortest route and avoiding spur-of-the-moment side trips.

When she fills a prescription, she shops for food at a supermarket around the corner. Other times, rather than driving across town, she walks to the small grocery store near her home. When she needed light bulbs and other items recently, she stopped at a hardware store along her route and spent a little more, rather than driving farther to a supermarket where prices were lower."

In just a matter of weeks, not only has Ms. Stone got her household budget under control, she has also halved her CO2 emissions. If everyone in America followed her example, we would reduce US CO2 emissions by a whopping 10% ! This month. We would also reduce the trade deficit, dramatically improve our “energy security,” and eliminate the endless debate over drilling in the Alaska Wildlife Refuge.


What I found interesting in the article was that there was no talk about how cutting back had required difficult sacrifice. Rather, those interviewed talked about adjusting their habits to take efficient travel into account.

"Towle, 44, now limits herself to one fill-up a week. She puts off buying more milk until she needs a bigger shopping trip. She used to drop her 13-year-old daughter off at basketball practice, make the 15-minute drive back home, then return to pick her up at the end of the 90-minute session. Now, she waits at the school."

Ridesharing, going loco, is another tool for the adjustment, and a pleasant one at that. I know my 14-year-old finds the carpool to and from her rock-climbing practices a valued part of her social life.

According to US Department of Energy numbers, the last four weeks have shown a flattening and a decline (depending on the location) in demand for gas, the first time in many years. The Globe article attributes these recent reductions to consumer realization that these high prices are here to stay, and so they need to adjust.

I think there is a different reason. Very high prices in home heating fuels drained low income Americans of their cash reserves. This happened in the fall. With Christmas, we saw credit card nonpayment surging. MacDonalds also saw a decline in revenues throughout the fall. With their credit pushed to the limits by heating needs and Christmas, and luxuries like eating-out reduced, petrol has finally risen to the top of the discretionary spending list for many Americans.

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