How green is your footprint?

By Debra Minor Wilson
Times West Virginian

FAIRMONT April 17, 2008 07:19 pm

— What is the color of the footprint you’re leaving on Mother Earth?
Is it eco-friendly green ... or is it ugly-consumer brown?
How well do you use her resources? How sustainable is your footprint ... How is it meeting your present needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs?
According to the National Geographic Channel, the average American baby will use 3,700 disposable diapers, which consume 1,898 pints of crude oil, four and a half trees, and 715 pounds of plastic to produce.
And that’s just for one baby.
During your lifetime, you will take more than 28,000 showers, use 1.2 million gallons of water (excluding showers), wear 3,696 pieces of clothing, use 31,350 gallons of gasoline, and own seven washing machines and eight microwave ovens.
That’s just for you.
It’s not too late to help save Mother Earth from crumbling from the weight of the millions of footprints trampling her soil today.
“But we’ll have to roll up our sleeves,” said Greg Adolfson, sustainable officer with the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection in Charleston.
“We are all consumers,” he said. “We need to make more informed decisions on what we’re consuming and why.
“Look at this country. Prices have increased, fuel specifically. The economy is down. Salaries have not gone up. We’re paying more for things. And a lot of that is driven by fuel prices.
“That affects your wallet. It costs more to drive, more to take public transportation.
“Why start worrying about your footprint now? Now is the best time to start, to educate the young and the old. It’s not just about the four R’s — reduce, reuse, recycle and rebuy.
“It’s how we’re affecting energy consumption, looking beyond waste, getting close to zero waste. And that will be a tough decision to make.”
A Google search of “footprint calculator” brings up 192,000 results. By answering a series of questions about how you use natural resources, you can find out if your footprint is friendly or not.
At earthday.net/footprint, you can calculate how many planets it takes to sustain just little old you.
“If the entire world consumed natural resources like the United States, we would need five and a half planets,” Adolfson said. “We are over-needing more than one planet to survive.”
Just ask yourself this question: What do you really need to sustain yourself?
“For me, it’s food, clothing, shelter and water,” Adolfson said. “I apply those to every day and look at the new decisions I have to make.”
One decision he’s made is to drive a fuel-friendly car.
“It gets much better mileage, plus there’s less pollution.
“It’s really that simple. We have to go for the low-hanging fruit, fruit that’s fallen to the ground. It might take some resources to reach the high-hanging fruit.”
Small steps, little changes — by individuals and businesses alike — can add up to big changes, he said.
“Businesses that use incandescent lighting can change to compact fluorescent lights, which use one-third to one-half the energy.
“Take out your old shower head and install a low-flow shower head. You will save hundreds of gallons of water. This will be reflected in your water and electric bills.
“Make sure your home is weatherized. That will also improve the energy efficiency of your home. You won’t need so much energy for heating and air conditioning.
“Adjust your thermostat even by one or two degrees. Less energy will be consumed.”
Plan your trips better, Adolfson said.
“Instead of little milk runs, have more structured, planned trips. You’ll get more accomplished.
“Do you need that Hummer or SUV or pickup truck? Do you need to build that large house? If you do, I hope to goodness you’re using sustainable appliances that consume fewer resources.”
Climate change may be a natural process, he said.
“But man’s activities all over the world are contributing to greenhouse gases.
“If we just begin to reduce energy consumption, we may be able to contribute less climate change over time.
“But it will take starting now and maintaining that commitment and pledge.
“I think it was Carl Sagan who had this quote about planet Earth being a little like a spaceship. We’re supposed to be a part of the crew on the spaceship, not just along for the ride.
“We’re going to have to roll up our sleeves and do things to effect a change. We’re going to have to change our attitude, behavior, culture and conditioning to better habits when it comes to consumption.
“We didn’t realize that our forests or water resources are dwindling. Having a potable water supply is a major issue.
“We need to go in the other direction ... fewer landfills, less waste. We need to change our consumption habit. We’ve become consumer-aholics.
“More important, the resources we’re trying to preserve and protect will be here for our children and our children’s children ... if we get it right.”
Climate change is real, he said.
“There is definitely scientific data that something is changing. We are warmer than we used to be. But is that a natural process? Yes, but also there’s man’s influence, whether it’s this industrialized world we created a hundred years ago or all this consumption.
“Countries are becoming less Third World. They want what the United States has. China is exceeding pollution over any country in the world, including the United States.
Businesses also need to go green, he said.
“Where I work, Toyota Manufacturing of West Virginia, is an almost zero-landfill operation. It doesn’t make waste that gets landfilled. It finds a use for everything that is waste.
“It’s not zero waste. There’s a big difference. Zero waste generates no waste. Zero landfill generates waste but either reuses or recycles that waste. That includes burning those materials to create energy.”
E-mail Debra Minor Wilson at dwilson@timeswv.com.

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