"So, are you like, going green or something?" That's what I was asked the other day by a friend who was checking out our blog for the first time. The phrasing of it struck me as funny. It kind of indicated that she thought of Green as a personal lifestyle choice, like say, becoming a vegetarian. "So, you're going vegetarian? Does that mean you have to eat that tofurkey stuff?"
This lifestyle-type question caught me off-guard, because lately I've been thinking about Green more at the macro-economic level. More as a gamechanging global initiative. With Barack Obama, T. Boone Pickens, and many others talking about making huge, wide-ranging, multi-billion-dollar investments in Green-related projects, it's hard not to be fixated on the big stage.
But in focusing so much on the high-level stuff, am I neglecting to face the reality of my not-so-sustainable lifestyle? Here's a snapshot of my life in terms of my carbon footprint:
- I live in the Dallas-Ft. Worth metroplex, which is really spread-out and has virtually no mass-transit (all freeways, see photo to the right)
- My wife and I live in a 1720 square foot townhome
- I drive a Toyota FJ Cruiser that only gets about 18 mpg
- I live about 13 miles from work; I sometimes carpool w/ the wife
- We buy most of our "stuff" from Wal-Mart, Target, or other importers
- We like to travel a lot
So, I obviously have some work to do if I wanna "go green." My worst guilty pleasure is my FJ. It's an "eco-foul" no doubt. But I love it! I don't really want to swap it for a Prius, and can't really afford to take the hit on the trade-in value. But in a place like DFW, I really shouldn't own an SUV. There are just too many miles to drive, too many gallons of dirty fossil fuels to burn. But it's an off-roading beast!
Most of you probably have a guilty pleasure or an eco-foul of your own, right? What is it? Come on, you can admit it. Is it your gigantic, oversized suburban home? Your 45 minute commute each way to work? Your obsession with turning the A.C. down to 60 degrees the moment you walk into your hotel room? Swimming pool? If you're a true red-blooded American, you have something wasteful to share, so let's hear it...
