Basically, it's a much more specific carbon footprint calculator that boils your lifestyle down to the total units of power you consume - including all the watts it takes to make, transport and care for your stuff over its lifetime. (We're talking down to the toothbrush.) This is, of course, exactly the category that I and so many other people have often failed to consider, and predictably, it's a big fat slice of my pie:
Actually, given my penchant for travel and its ill effects, I was a teeny bit surprised to see that my stuff category is in fact my biggest vice. (Though 2010 may still be the Year of Going Nowhere.) That's exactly what makes this tool so smart: with quantifiable data, it's much easier to cut through the eco advice clusterfuck and focus on the slice that matters most for you. If your food category is huge but your commuting portion is tiny, it's probably better to put off the Prius purchase and start summoning your inner herbivore instead.
Or as Wattzon founder Saul Griffith says, just stop paying taxes (the "Government" slice). But hey, at least now we can hope Obama will do something positive with the cash.
Speaking of which, isn't it wonderful to wake up every day to NPR saying "This morning, President Obama vowed to shut down Guantanamo / bring the troops home / allow California to set tougher emissions standards / cure cancer / save the baby animals / buy me a cookie"?
1 comment:
Totally. It's as if every morning I wake up to NPR saying "Not only would the president like to send you a cookie, but suggests that a backrub might fix what ails you. He'll be over at 10."
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