Last week I got a newsletter from Portfolio 21, a mutual fund in which I've invested some money. Portfolio 21 invests in companies that "build-rather than erode the natural, social, and economic capital in communities worldwide."
I read in the newsletter that one of the fund advisors had designed an interactive online game called Consumer Consequences (http://sustainability.publicradio.org/consumerconsequences/) that measures your "ecological footprint." Since I've been trying for years to minimize my own ecological footprint, I thought I'd play the game and see how I was doing. In the game you answer questions about how you live - your house, how you eat, the transportation choices you make, how you shop and what you do with your garbage.
Here's a definition of ecological footprint from Wikipedia: "compares human consumption of natural resources with planet Earth's ecological capacity to regenerate them. ... Using this assessment, it is possible to estimate how many planet Earths it would take to support humanity if everybody lived a given lifestyle."
The first set of questions in Consumer Consequences had to do with my house. Since I live in a small house I scored pretty well on that one: The rating at the top of the page told me it would take only 0.9 earths to sustain the total human population if everyone lived like me.
The main question in the next section was about how much I pay monthly for gas and electricity. Has anyone noticed how much we pay for energy in Nevada? My house, though small, costs a lot to heat. The energy use questions took me up to 1.3 earths - and we don't even have air conditioning.
Fortunately Carson City has curbside recycling and we recycle as much as we can, so the next questions about garbage and recycling held me at only 1.3 earths. We're also doing OK on commuting, since my weekly commute is a combination of walking, bus, driving, and telecommuting. Other transportation choices took me up to 1.6 earths though: I think much of that was due to our habit of driving places to go skiing.
Moving on to food choices, I thought we'd do pretty well because last summer we signed up for deliveries of locally grown food from Smith and Smith Farms in Dayton. Eating locally grown food is environmentally friendly because the food isn't transported long distances in fossil-fuel-powered vehicles. But food took me up to 2.3 earths - probably because I eat meat. But my meat is locally grown. Shouldn't that make a difference in the game? Apparently not.
The questions about shopping took me to 2.5 earths. I think I fudged on the question about replacing things only if they're completely worn out. Should I have just bought a slipcover for the sofa with arms scratched to ribbons by a cat, rather than replacing it?
My final score told me that it would take 2.5 earths to sustain the current human population if everyone lived the way I do. I felt bad. But the game offers you an opportunity to compare your score against others, so I compared myself with other Nevada residents (91 of them) who've played. The average score of Nevadans was 4.3 earths. So even though I'm not doing great, I'm doing almost twice as well as the state average.
My New Year's resolution is to get my planet score down to one. That will be hard though, because this year for the first time I bought a season pass at a downhill ski area. No matter how a ski resort might call itself "green," as many do these days, consider the industry. Most consumers drive to ski resorts alone or with one or two other people. The lifts are fossil-fuel-powered. Lifts and lodges are built in ecologically fragile mountain environments. But I love skiing, and I also like to see all those families up there having fun in the outdoors.
In a Dec. 23 AP article about growing consumer debt in this country, a credit counselor says: "The desires of consumers to want, want, want, spend, spend, spend - it's the fabric of our nation. But you always have to pay the piper, and that can be a very painful process."
He's talking about consumer debt, but the same can be said about the environment. Living beyond our ecological means is running up a debt with the earth - a debt that eventually must be repaid, if not by us, then by our children. So I've been thinking about trade-offs. Trade-offs are something we all used to think about more before credit cards gave us the notion that we could have our cake, and then another and another, and eat them all too. Remember when people used to save up money for big purchases by saving on small purchases, rather than pulling out the plastic? That's the kind of trade-off I'm talking about.
So, back to ecological footprints, I've decided that if I drive to Mt. Rose then I have to take the bus to work every day, not just half the time or when I feel like it. And maybe I can carpool. Anyone want to carpool up to Mt. Rose on Fridays?
• Fresh Ideas: Starting conversations by sharing personal perspectives on timely and timeless issues. Anne Macquarie, a private-sector urban planner, is a 19-year resident of Carson City.