Earth Day in Wilmette and Carbon Footprints

Happy Earth Day! I imagine you have a little dirt under your fingernails, too, seeing how good the weather is here in Wilmette! I found this great little quiz over at Bala's Blog, which you might enjoy taking, too. I got a 21, and surely could do much better if I could eat more locally grown food and take more public transportation. Unfortunately, there is a limited amount of each around here, so what's a person to do? When carbon footprints start getting discussed, we might as well cut out the Olympics. Sorry, Chicago! That's a high carbon footprint event; lots of jetting around and all. Does anybody ever worry about that? Wouldn't it be more sensible if they were cancelled? I would be happy to drive a super tiny car if they would just remove the trucks and suv's from the street, so reality intrudes into idealism.

I wish they had questions a little more relevant information to Wilmette on the quiz. What about the carbon footprint of tearing down an old house and building a new one? I would think that there are no net energy savings once you figure all the manufacturing of new materials, dumping of old, trucks involved, etc. I wonder why they never address these concerns anywhere. Unfortunately, it would seem that the best carbon footprint is hunting and gathering from a hut, or subsistence farming. Seems that the same people who are worrying about getting these people out of poverty ought to be celebrating their lifestyle instead. Well, the quiz will get you thinking a little so take a minute to figure out how you rank. When you're done, if you explore on the website you might find this link to the latest concern: electronic smog.