My calculated carbon footprint:
The average greenhouse gas emissions for a US citizen is 27 tons of CO2/yr while the world average is only 5.5... well at least I've found a happy medium. The largest piece of my breakdown pie seems to be home energy and that's understandable when you share a triplex style home with 4 other roommates. Lights get left on, people leave the fridge open and our shared washing machine is going nonstop. However I did make the effort and investment to install florescent bulbs in most of our lamps, only because we don't have A/C and incandescent bulbs give off much more heat than fluorescent and LED. Saving the environment is cool, too, I guess.
The biggest difference between myself and the average US citizen is that I don't drive a car. In the words of Bob Marley, "my feet are my only carriage." However, I'm also a gigantic advocate and user of the public transportation in Boston. Riding the T ten stops and taking a bus five miles twice everyday definitely leaves its mark on the environment, yet not so much as if I drove myself to and from work everyday instead.
Meat is, unfortunately, one of the staples of my diet, like most Americans. We love our beef so much but rarely think about where it comes from. Those giant open-range ranches in the midwest are packed with cows and cows... fart. Like they fart a lot. You would too if you had four stomachs. Anyway what I'm saying is that when all those cows are farting away they are releasing enormous amounts of methane gas, a strong greenhouse gas. It'd be great if we could harness this methane because it is a great energy source, you may know it as natural gas, for obvious reasons.
But just like muscle cars and bad television, Americans love their beef and it's not going away anytime soon.
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