So, around these parts, the local talk radio source is KBKW and, on certain mornings I happen to catch Coffee Talk with Doug McDowell. I have grown to respect this show because Mr. McDowell is typically not a personality that makes uninformed claims and the guests are respected even if some fundamental disagreements could be brought up. There are even times when listeners can hear him change and develop an informed opinion on air.

The issues of the show are typically local and the station really is the best source for information in the area… I really can’t say much for most of the other shows but I would think that I would have some major disagreements with most hosts. I believe I heard, at one point, a host state something to this extent: “you wonder why there are 50 year old men who run and diet just to have heart attacks… we’re humans! It’s not in our nature to exert ourselves!” Yeah… and driving in a car and watching TV is.

Anyways, this post is about a phrase that drove my respect for Mr. McDowell down a bit: “I don’t care about my carbon footprint and never will.” Ugghhh… Really? Okay… lets think about this a little: concern for a personal carbon footprint isn’t about yourself: it’s about changing a norm. We live in a country where household energy consumption is beyond obscene and, worst of all, we somehow are setting a standard for how life should be around the world! Cars, houses with “personal space,” and more things to fill that personal space.

This is a bad thing. What the world needs is a country that sets an example for a sustainable way of life… especially one that can be taken to a worst case scenario of worldwide scale. Take all the personal choices that we make and multiply them by the population of the world and, even without numbers, we realize that the earth simply couldn’t sustain that kind of consumption and growth. An awesome carbon footprint quiz to take is this one through Redefining Progress which gives you the number of earths that it would require to provide the resources if everyone lived like you.

What concern for carbon footprint does is give a personal measure of impact and that our choices really are the cause and effect of many systems.

Just needed to get that out of my system.