“If everyone in the world lived as I do we would need 4.89 worlds.” This is the statement that grabbed my attention after completing my ecological footprint quiz on myfootprint.org. I was rocked, shocked, and floored. I thought I lived pretty simply; my wife and I have a small house that we never cool in summer, and heat to a balmy 55 degrees in winter. We have a garden; we have cut down extremely on meat intake, and have put in energy efficient lights. How then, can I reduce further?
I have a car, it is not the best car, in fact my wife jokes I have the ugliest most beat up car in the valley. It is a 2001 Chevrolet Lumina. It has had a run in with a full-grown elk that smashed the side in; the power steering does not work, and it has a block of foam doing a bad impression of a window. This car, I believe, is a large part of why my footprint is so high. I drive it, and that’s the problem. It was not always this way. When I lived in Denver I had what my loved ones called a lead foot and it led to a restricted license for 6 months. I bought a bike and rode everywhere. I enjoyed riding. It was nice not to have a car for a while. I still have the bike although after 7 years it is in rough shape and not rideable any more, sure I could get it fixed. I had a longboard that was my favorite way to get around for two summers. I would go all over Glenwood. I loved it; I was free of my car again. Last month someone thought they deserved it more than me and broke into my car, in my driveway, in the middle of the night and claimed it as their own. Now I am back to my car. I have been walking lately and it’s not bad it just takes about 20 times longer and is not feasible with a busy lifestyle.
Another big contributor to my apparently appalling consumption is the energy inefficiency of my house. It’s not really my house, we rent. The house is very old. It is actually a converted coal bin, a poorly converted coal bin. The windows do not seat perfectly in their sills, and there single pane. There is a swamp cooler that we don’t use because it leaks badly. In the winter we can feel cold blasts coming in the house from the cooler. The only way of heating this house is electric. I hate using the heat; it’s expensive and inefficient. In summer we sweat in 80-90 degree heat, and in winter we shiver in temps as low as 40. The washer and dryer are older, the stoves electric, and there is no low flow appliances. But our rent is cheep.
These are the biggest contributors to my high footprint so how can I fix these? First off I need to get my bike fixed and use it. Second lets get this house more efficient. Plastic on windows in winter would help my energy consumption. Even better would be double pane windows. Removal of the swamp cooler or a more efficient one. Eating raw would help save energy from cooking. And air-drying laundry would go a long way. The thing is we have attempted all these things. It takes capitol to do some of these changes, capitol that we don’t have right now. I would love to get my landlord to fix up the house. His investment would raise our rent, we would no longer be able to pay, and we would be homeless.
