growing greener

after reading siel's post about the ecological footprint quiz that she took recently...i was, of course, curious as to what my footprint was and wanted to compare notes to another green girl in el lay. well, funny enough, i got the same score as her! my enviro footprint, according to this test, is 9 acres. i felt good about being much lower than the 24 acres of an average american...but then i read that if everyone lived like me, we would need 2.1 planets!!! ugh...seeing as we only have one planet to work with here, i still have a lot of greening to do!

so i signed on for slate and treehugger's green challenge. when i signed up, i went through an initial quiz (found at the bottom of the slate site) about my current living that yielded these results:

"Your annual carbon emissions are 33,500 lbs.

That's equivalent to the emissions from 3.29 passenger cars.

Average carbon emissions per year, per person:
United States: 44,312
Qatar: 117,064
France: 13,668
India: 2,645
Kenya: 440"

wow... i can't say that this one made me feel better. but, the only option that i have for myself is to step up to this green challenge, and put my action where my mouth is. the green challenge has a topic for each week, including transportation, heating, food, clothing, electricity, holidays, water, and home/office. with each topic comes a related quiz that challenges you to take action against your polluting ways.

i have already pledged in the areas of transportation (probably the biggest for me, not that i fly or drive all that much, but this is definitely where i see my biggest changes possible), heating, food and clothing. i have set green intentions in each of these areas and will be updating you with the successes and challenges for each.

in the meantime, i invite you to take these quizzes with me. whether you're a green saint or not, you will likely discover some great opportunities for change in your life and hopefully be inspired enough to pass it on to others.