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.
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.
posted by Thrushsong at 5:25 PM
5 Comments:
It might interest you that there were carbon emissions in the good old days as well. The average cow emits the same amount of carbon in the form of CO2 per day as the average SUV. But I am glad that you are trying to do your part to follow God's command to "dress and keep" the earth.
That is interesting. I'm not aware of any soil amendments that the SUV produces, however.
I enjoyed reading this post - I often get frustrated with people who talk about saving the earth by forcing someone else to change things such as factories, rainforests, cars design, etc. when they are the one that chose far to large a car for thier needs, buy furniture made from rainforest trees, or keep their house at 60°/summer 80°/winter. It is good to see someone that takes initiative.
Eating meat and diary products is another big one as has been mentioned: Cows produce a large ammount of CH4 (methane) which is a more potent greenhouse gas than CO2, but there is a lot of diesl consumption associated with them too since their food needs to be planted, cultivated, harvested, and transported - and as far as their efficiency of creating food... let's just say it takes more than a pound of corn to make a pound of beef.
actually, I think the corn/beef ratio is several hundred to one. If the whole world went vegan, there would be more than enough food to go around.
The supreme court recently decided that EPA has to regulate CO2 (to this point, it has been exempted). Depended on who lands in the white house, this might have some real impact.
One way or the other, Americans still produce more than twice as much pollution (per person) as the rest of the world. Despite China's huge population, we still top them (and every other country) in total volume as well.
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