A Carbon Checkin
I was inspired by this video to check in on our carbon footprint.
It's tempting to think daily choices make a big difference, like choosing to turn a light out or choosing to recycle. But the environment in which we live plays a bigger role. When we were thinking about moving, I was reading research about how different the carbon footprint is between cities and their distant exurbs. The New York Times has this great visualization of the difference.
We really felt it as soon as we moved, places that were a 15 minute drive before became half that or were bikable. Here's an image of our before and after.
Of course, where we live is not the only macro factor in our footprint. As our family eventually spreads out and moves into their own spaces, our collective carbon footprint will grow. It's collectively more efficient to heat and cool a house for five people than it will be for two.
The Shifter video above recommends carbonfootprint.com as a way to estimate your carbon impact.
I compared our footprint before and after the move. There are four main categories.
- Consumption is food, clothing, groceries, technology and financial services. I entered the same values in for both locations.
- House is the carbon cost of heating and cooling your home. We didn't require any AC in Rochester for the entire month of August. We've installed a home energy monitoring tool, blog post coming soon. Electricity in Rochester is about 30% more carbon efficient than in Tennessee.
- Flights was estimated as a trip for three to Lisbon from both places and three trips to Des Moines.
- Car travel is way down. I estimated 30k miles in Nashville and 12k in Rochester (including longer drives). Even with all our enthusiasm for biking, the impact this makes on our total footprint is tiny compared to the carbon footprint of our consumption and flights. Do it for the joy, not the footprint.
So what are the totals?
- An average American household emits about 42 metric tons per hear.
- In Nashville, we were emitting perhaps 35.6 tons.
- In Rochester, we're down to 25.7 tons.
Our footprint is down 28%. Of the improvement, 40% is due to reduced car dependency, 30% due to the more mild climate here and the remaining 30% due to a cleaner energy mix in Rochester.
Want a little more green? Check out this video on spotting and avoiding greenwashing.
