Tonight, at the end of a leisurely weekend, warm and sunny and not even spring yet, I decided to look at my energy consumption. Everyone and his dog professes to be considered about this these days, but that's not why I'm looking as well.
I have two other reasons. First, I want to keep myself from getting too smug about not having a car, riding my bike to work every day even when I rains, and not heating my apartment much – I'm also sitting in a plane about once a month. What's the offset? Second, I moved in exactly two years ago, which simplifies the gas and electricity consumption calculations.
I've used about 1200kWh of electricity and 3100kWh of gas since moving in. The English site Climate Care calculates this to produce about 0.55t of CO2 per year. In France I get three quarters of my electricity from nuclear power, which avoids CO2 emissions but opens a completely different can of worms. The jury is still out, as far as I can tell.
According to the same Carbon Calculator, the 35 flights I took in the last twelve months produced about another three to four tons of CO2. How do I account for layovers? I didn't feel like adding every leg of every flight. What about half-empty planes? The number is necessarily very approximate. It doesn't sound a whole lot, and it's certainly better than in 2005 when I went to the US four times.
If you don't mind some random number magic, Best Foot Forward will calculate your ecological footprint based on recycling and meat eating habits. Severe hocus pocus alert! If everyone lived like me, we would need 2.5 planets. But does everyone really want to live like me?
Now that the long-promised rain is finally falling on Grenoble, washing dusty air and dirty streets clean, I still have no good feeling on how much I'm hurting the planet. I guess as long as I'm sitting in my apartment in a thick woolen sweater I can justify flying south every now and then.
3 comments:
thanks for the links. I've never considered that. My boss is always on my case to give up my car. It's very fuel efficient and I don't drive very far. But that's a good reason not to drive--it's not very far.
You own a car in New York? Does it not drive you nuts? Public transport has really improved in the last years, hasn't in? In terms of reliability and cleanliness as well as security?
you are right to wonder but I should say I live & work in the Bronx. The Northeast Bronx. The rest of the city hardly knows we're here. It's practically a suburb. It's difficult to get from one side of the Bronx to the other by the MTA (metropolitan transit authority) and also the buses are crowded with school children. Also I have developed claustrophobia and "germophobia".
Finally, the subways are genuinely safer but late at night when I'm waiting for a shuttle to carry me to the far reaches of the Bronx where apparently nobody lives, and a weirdo starts looking at me as if I am a delicious snack, I really wish I had driven.
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