One step closer to perfect information

Image obtained from treehugger.com

Sometimes I get the feeling that I’m operating in a closed system. Like there’s an upper bound on the amount of mental or physical resources I can devote toward the seemingly limitless goals and aspirations that flood my everyday life. It’s like you can grasp your own glass ceiling and you want to shatter it to bits, but you’re worried that your world will shatter with it. Or worse, you’re ready to shatter your world and aggrandize, but you’re not sure how. 

This is what the music binge is for. You listen to a song you like on Pandora, type the name in YouTube, paste the link in Zamzar, and then voila you have a sonic boom of expression waiting in your email inbox. Do it twenty times over, and you’ve got the match, the spark, the chitty and bang, bang of a verifiable  personal renaissance.

I love the music binge. It shakes up my present and gives old hopes a new spin. The current hope is a quest for perfect information, but it starts small with my everyday choices. I want to be able to understand what it means to dry clothes on a clothesline instead of a dryer, to take the bus instead of driving, to compost instead of throwing away biodegradables, etc. Screw the abstract numbers, I need tangible figures that an everyday Steve can grasp. 

Okay. Carbon dioxide emissions are a good start. I did a little research to figure out how much carbon dioxide I can responsibly emit each year to be able coexist in our natural heritage.

I reasoned that by taking the total amount of environmentally acceptable carbon emissions and dividing them by the global population it would yield the acceptable amount of carbon emissions per person. I found out that last year every human being should’ve emitted around 6,424 lbs. of carbon. (People actually emitted around 15,418 lbs. on average.) To see the math, click here. 

In honor of Thanksgiving, I have a metric to be thankful for. The world speaks in pounds of carbon dioxide and it turns out when cars burn one gallon of gasoline it releases about 20 lbs. My Annabel drives about 25 miles per gallon. By checking my trusty driving log I see that I’ve driven about 5,252.6 miles. To date I’ve burned about 4,202.8 pounds of carbon. To see the math, click here.

 

This is good news for our planet because I drive a lot of miles to see family, friends, and to bolster quality leisure time. I haven't crashed through the 6,424 pound average yet, so I think it would be very possible to emit carbon at the responsible environmental levels provided in the Kyoto Protocol.

I kind of want to hug a koala or high five a polar bear, but this is only a small step. I know that I have a long way in my quest to better understand how each of my habits plays into my overall carbon footprint. I know that transportation is only a portion of my energy budget, however, this knowledge is taking me in a direction that I like. The closer I get toward perfect information, the sooner I can get better, freer, and chart a course to true life, liberty and happiness. 

Carbon and population figures were given by the following websites:

http://www.thinkglobalgreen.org/CARBONDIOXIDE.html

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0762181.html

'Food Game' to begin in quest for perfect information

Perfect information is glory. Take my Giant checkout line experience, today, for example: because of crafty collaboration between the public and private sectors, I learned precisely upon my grocery receipt’s arrival that I have $44.12 left in food stamp benefits. With this info at my fingertips, I can now plan like a rational consumer how I should budget my remaining benefits until my $200 reload comes Feb. 1.

Now, if I had even quasi-perfect information regarding how my food purchasing habits affected climate change, I would dance with a hobo to a mandolin at firelight. The problem is, I don’t know of any grocery stores in south Arlington, or the United States for that matter, that provide information about the greenhouse gases emitted from growing, packaging, and transporting the food I consume. Hell, it’s a small victory when I’m able to find where the food I consume even comes from.

When it comes to produce,

Giant is a source of perpetual wonder.

Giant confidently labels this variety

of plum tomatoes as a product of

USA and a product of Mexico.

Due to my vast lack of knowledge regarding how my diet and climate change relate to one another, I’m going to start “Food Game” February 1. ¡Get excited! In a nutshell, I’m going to record the distance that the food I consume travels, from its point of origin to the grocery store in which I buy it. This game will require me using mucho estimation, because I most likely won’t be privy to information about the direct route of my food items. Basically, the purpose of this game will be for me to trim down the total travel distance of my food items.

Side note: Food Game is a work in progress. Stay tuned for the entire set of “Food Game” Rules and Regulations.

Power Up: The U.K.is in the process of equipping its consumers with information regarding how their food consumption directly affects climate change. Check it out

'Let's call it the Badassazoic'

Jeff Zeiss, creative extraordinaire crafted this wonder-graphic and established the new decade as the Badassazoic. To see more of Zeiss' masterworks click here.



It’s not just a new year that’s upon us, but a new decade – A NEW ERA. We’re facing the best of times, the age of wisdom, the epoch of belief, and the season of light, to borrow from Charles D. And as my friend Jeff more aptly puts it, we’ve entered into the Badassazoic.

For me, the new decade couldn’t come at a more opportune time. I’ve been in south Arlington now for four months, I’ve got the lay of the land, and I’m itching to flourish. In honor of Ben and Marina’s New Year’s podcast, I made a Reto Concreto, or a well-defined resolution, to make 2011 worthwhile.

RETO CONCRETO: Halve my carbon footprint from last year

I used National Geographic’s carbon footprint calculator to determine that I emitted about 5.25 tons of carbon last year. So my magic number this year is 2.625 tons of carbon.

Below are the areas I have to improve upon to reach my target of 2.625 tons of carbon emitted.

DRIVING: Last year I was pretty good at avoiding driving, so it’s going to be tough to beat 2010's mileage. I’ve got to drive less than 2,310 miles.

Last April through October, I didn’t drive at all. While living in Glen Ellyn, I biked to the work and took the train into Chicago whenever I wanted to reuniabrate with city dweller compadres. While residing in DC and south Arlington I’ve been taking public transportation or bumming rides to work, up until I decided to bring a car out here in November.

FLYING: By far my downfall last year was flying. I took the equivalent of six round trip flights from Washington DC to Chicago (700 miles one-way). Unfortunately, while I was soaring up in the stratosphere my carbon emissions had a more acute impact than if they were emitted on land. It’s complicated, but there is a minor consensus out there that the impact of flying, regarding greenhouse gas emissions, is 2.7 times more harmful than the equivalent impact of driving.

HEAT & ELECTRICITY: I did not use any sort of green power options available through the power company in 2010. Fortunately, this year I am so poor that I qualified for the Commonwealth of Virginia Energy Assistance Program this winter. Considering that they credited me $273.55 for three months, and the most I’ve spent so far has been $22.23 on a heating and electric bill, I’m going to try to opt into the green energy option offered by Dominion which costs 1.5 cents more per kilowatt-hour used. Stay posted to see if this endeavor is successful.

GETTING TO THE ENDGAME:

- Driving: I’m going to rely on my bike or a combination of bike and public transportation to help me cut back on driving. Check out my driving progress as I update my driving log whenever I burn more carbon.

- Flying: I’m going to try to cut back on my plane rides to help me reduce my flying emissions

-Heat & Electricity: I’m hoping that this Monday will be the day that I enroll in the Dominion Green Power plan. Stay posted.