Thinking about my ecological footprint

I was reading Robert Jensen's book All My Bones Shake, and in the section on living sustainably, he mentions this interesting website by Redefining Progress that estimates your ecological footprint. I took their quiz, found at www.myfootprint.org, and discovered that if everyone in the world lived like my partner and I we would need 4 Earths. We didn't do too badly, relative to the country average, even though I had to include my wife's 7000 miles traveled by plane per year! Check out the site. There might be more like it, though, that use other methods to estimate your footprint. The aspect of the site that I wondered about was Coca-cola's sponsorship. I wonder what Coke's ecological footprint would be?!?! Well, anyway, here are my results.

Gettin' back to The Life in Founders' Grove

In our fifth week living in our new house, I still can't get over how superb it is living in a central location within the city! We made that a major factor in choosing our house, and so far at least we have reduced our car use dramatically, which is a major quality of life issue for me. I sometimes don't use the car for a week or two. Rachel takes the bike trail or the bus daily, and I actually can walk to work. And every single major destination is within a mile or so and bikeable.

For me, the goal of divorcing myself from the car is more than just environmentalism. It's having your feet on the ground, being able to exercise in the course of your life, having a sense of community with the town folk, and enjoying the beauty of a gorgeous neighborhood.