I recently completed the carbon calculator on the Duke Sustainability website. It was part of an email I got from the Green Devil Challenge campaign (no relation to this column).
Overall I think I did pretty well -- I would need to plant 55 seedlings, growing for 10 years to offset my annual footprint. My relative ratings in three of the four categories -- energy, diet, and behavior -- was "Low." These numbers don't necessarily mean I'm doing everything right, but I do live off campus, so carbon emissions associated with my living situation don't come into the Duke equation. If I lived in the dorms, it might be a different story. Since, I don't eat on campus much, or work in my office all day, those contributions are also low. I also do my best to recycle, and I think I got points for that.
What I didn't score so well in was the fourth category: transportation.
Apparently I have an average commuting footprint for a Duke community member. My annual carbon footprint associated with transportation -- based on the generic questions I answered in the survey -- is roughly 1.7 metric tons of carbon equivalents. That's more than two thirds of my total footprint. I was okay with this for a while, but then I asked myself, who wants to be average?! At anything! I do go to Duke after all, a school that prides itself on being above average.
So I'm putting myself on a carbon diet. I'm setting my own challenge: a challenge for the green devil (note the lower case).
For a week, I will stop driving my car, and bike to school, or take the bus. I will post my thoughts on this experiment on this blog, and hopefully talk about the experience in my final column of the year, which will run on Earth Day.
Stay tuned!
(As a side note, I encourage everyone with a netID to navigate to the Duke Sustainability web page, log in and sign the pledge. Then take the challenge for yourself!)
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