Carbon Emissions

I've been reading the article in the October issue of National Geographic that discusses strategies to reduce carbon emissions. Oh it's easy to be proud of the fact that none of our vehicles have more than 4 cylinders and all get 30mpg or more, or that so far this season, the only heat we've had in the house (excepting the electric blanket) has been from burning firewood. But then I do have to admit that we have one vehicle for every member of our family and sometimes each of us drives to church separately because we can't all seem to get ready to leave at the same time. At Alban's encouragement we have begun to separate our trash and place what we can in the recycle bins. Instead of salving my conscience though, this has made me more aware of all the plastic containers we go through per week which is another way of recognizing how much prepared food we eat. When one considers that hydrocarbons were used for the fertilizer, pesticides, cultivation, harvesting, packaging, and transport of these food items, one can imagine that they are awash in carbon emissions.

I'm wishing for the days of printed cotton flour sacks that my patients used to swap with one another to get enough of one print to make a dress from; the days when families bought flour and sugar in 50 pound lots and ate food they'd preserved from their own gardens right through the winter.

Of course wishing for the good old days is just a way of avoiding making the hard decisions necessary to really reduce the amount of carbon emissions I'm responsible for. Maybe I could start by putting the storm windows up tonight, and go put another layer on rather than fire up the furnace.