This week is a big week here at Carma. No I’m not talking Easter, although I’d love some chocolate eggs, I’m talking about Earth Day.
While we try to live a greener life throughout the year, Earth Day on April 22nd is a day for putting in a real big push towards shrinking our carbon footprints.
The Earth Day network has a fun little footprint calculator that tells you how good (or bad) your impact on the planet is. Both Greg and I, the two interns here in the office, decided to have a go and see just how many Earths we would need if everyone lived like us.
Greg, a vegetarian who walks to work, clocked in at 2 full Earths to support his lifestyle. Good, especially as it was below the western average of 2.4 Earths, but still not sustainable if everyone lived the same way.
On the other hand, I was pretty shocked by by own score. I scored a 5.2!
I thought I was quite green – I recycle, turn off lights, I don’t even turn on the heating until my wife really starts to complain. I do eat meat though, I do drive to work, and I fly on a fairly regular basis – three huge factors in the size of my footprint.
So, shamed out of my complacency, I grabbed Greg and shouted “we gotta do something” and set to work coming up with a plan. Hell if I’m going down, I’m taking Greg with me!
The first thing we thought of, once Greg had stopped looking so smug, was to make an awesome video. So we did. Here it is:
But Greg says “we can’t just make an awesome video and call ourselves green! Especially as you’re gonna drive home and probably eat a steak!”
So we sit down for lunch – Greg with some lentil and rice concoction, me with a lacklustre, meat-free sandwich..
I decide I’m going to plant a tree,
“What’s greener than a tree?” I ask.
Greg, being the kill-joy he is, points out that while a tree is nice, it’s hardly going to offset my drive home every day.
“I’ll plant a thousand trees!” I reply, sure that Greg couldn’t possibly have a comeback for this.
Unfortunately, Greg reminds me that I spend about 90% of my waking life at the computer and that I can’t make it through our weekly soccer game without having to take a power nap 15 minutes in.
Greg, probably fearing my fully fit soccer skills, comes up with a new plan to not only plant a heap load of trees but also limit my exercise to spinning around on my office chair.
“Why not plant trees with the Earth Day Network’s Canopy Project? Maybe even plant a tree for each of our users!”
While probably not as good an idea as me single-handedly planting 1,000 trees and finally beating Greg at soccer, I was feeling a little breathless from spinning too fast on my chair, so agreed that this was a good enough plan B.
We wanted to tell all our users about our tree planting idea, so we made some cool wallpapers, told everyone we knew on Facebook and Twitter and headed home to eat Easter Eggs for the long weekend.
I’m feeling greener already.
Come back tomorrow for part 2 of Team Carma’s Earth Day activities…