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A smaller impact on the Earth starts with us.
Earth Day has come and gone. But our carbon footprint remains.
For those 81,548 of us who live in Tracy, it’s a pretty big footprint, even though some of us faithfully fill our blue recycling bins and smugly turn off our computers every night — except when we have insomnia. Most of us drive gas-guzzling cars to work every day, and at least 70 percent commute way over the hill. And who among us braves the valley summer without air conditioning?
 To find out just how green or ungreen we are — or how much greenhouse gas we produce as individuals — there’s a proliferation of “carbon calculators” to be found online. The good news is that our personal carbon emissions have nothing to do with what we’re emitting from our bodies.
Nevertheless, think Bigfoot. On average, Americans generate 20 tons of carbon dioxide a year.
Granted, it’s a confusing time to live right now. On the one hand, we’re told to go out and spend-spend-spend our tax rebates/stimulus checks. On the other, we’re told to stay home, turn off our lights and live like monks. (New research from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology shows that Buddhist monks have smaller carbon footprints than even homeless people who live in shelters.)
The presidential candidates have all called for a significant reduction in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions — an 80 percent reduction by 2050 for Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and 65 percent for John McCain. But how on God’s green earth are we supposed to meet those goals, especially with a projected increase of 40 million residential U.S. households by 2050? Just to stay at 2008 levels of CO2, average household emissions would have to fall by 1.5 tons a year.
Hang your clothes out to dry now, folks.
While our policymakers set goals and debate over alternative energy sources, it’s a good time to take some personal steps to conserve and change that flabby footprint. We know the drill, whether we grew up in the Depression, lived with someone who grew up in the Depression, grew up in the ’60s or live with someone who grew up in the ’60s.
We can wash our clothes with cold water, compost our trash, make our own baking-soda cleansers, trade in our SUVs for hybrids, give up meat, plant gardens, shop at the farmers market, join a carpool, take public transportation, ride a bicycle, take shorter showers, use tote bags for groceries, use cloth napkins and buy second-hand furniture.
Oh, and here’s one for all the coffee drinkers. No, don’t stop drinking the stuff. How about using your own coffee mug, rather than contributing to the 16 billion disposable paper cups thrown away in North America every year — enough cups, placed end to end, to wrap 57 times around the Earth?
Hey, if it helps lighten the load, it’s worth a try.
• The Tracy Press is printed on recycled newsprint.
Sources for calculating your footprint:
• www.earthlab.com
• www.greentagsusa.org
• www.carbonfund.org
• http://thenatureconservancy.net/popups/about/
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