Slate Green Challenge

Slate.com and blog Treehugger.com are teaming up to educate people about their carbon emissions and to encourage them to pledge to reduce their carbon output by 20% over 8 weeks. Check it out at the Slate Green Challenge.

I signed up for the challenge. I was directed to a page where I first signed in and then took a quiz to establish my carbon emissions baseline. I answered questions about how much I drive, where I buy my food (paper or plastic?), how long my showers are, and where my electricity comes from. I submitted my quiz prompting a new screen to load, which bluntly informed me: "Your annual carbon emissions are 34,144 lbs." That's equivalent to 3.35 cars or 78 Kenyans. The average American emits 44.312 lbs of CO2. With my baseline established, I was ready to reduce my emissions.

To find out how I could reduce my emissions, I took the Week 1 Action Quiz, which focused on transportation. The quiz introduced me to 9 actions I could take to reduce my CO2 emissions and asked me if I would pledge to do them. I had easy options, such as pledging to check the air in my tires monthly, and not so easy options, such as pledging to buy a Toyota Prius. In the end, I pledged to check the air in my tires monthly, check my air filter monthly, carpool twice a week, and buy carbon offsets from TerraPass to "neutralize" my car's carbon emissions. Those simple pledges amount to taking .27 cars/year off the road. Now I feel all green and fuzzy inside.

Next week I will answer questions about home heating. I'm envisioning pledges involving wool sweaters and jumping jacks. Stay tuned... and JOIN THE CHALLENGE. It's fun and you could win a free organic cotton t-shirt.