It's Earth Day today, a celebration that's pretty new in Sweden. Since I still have Big and Important Business to do several days a week I'm a bit tired and have to celebrate on the small scale with a cup of tea and a cookie in a manual rocking chair. Unfortunately I happened to pick a maamoul, ie. a cookie from the Middle East individually wrapped in plastic coated with aluminium. I think my environmental points just turned negative. On the other hand I go by train as often as I can and refuse to go by plane - perhaps I was on the plus side to begin with?
Well, if it's Earth Day I feel it's apropriate to ponder the personal lifestile. Is it possible to green it enough? After a couple of years of luke warm work I've reached the point where I almost only use my share of our earth. So I dare say it's possible to live a green life without turning to such extreme meassures as move to the country and live in a yurt (which would be rather cosy, actually). My help is a simpel rule: green habits and devices are only incorporated in my life if they make my life easier and/or makes it possible to live on less money. I've supplemented a helprule; rather do it almost right than completely wrong. This helps me stay cool when I've happened to do something unvironmentally unfriendly - like eating an ridiculously doubble wrapped cookie.
Every now and then I check my lifestyle on MyFootprint.org to see if I'm making progress. Today my rating was 1.12 Earths, which means I'm going in the right direction (last time I checked I had 1.28 Earths). My goal is a rating of 0.8 Earths - to compensate for any wishfull thinking when I complete the form and any errors due to cultural differenses between Sweden and the USA (where I suspect this website is maintained). I hope to reach this within a year, and if not... well, there are more years to come, and I'm still way below the national average. I use 17.55 acres whereas swedes in general use 40.9.
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