From the "No Impact Man" blog:
A new project launched by Miranda at Simple Living and Sharon at Causabon’s Book, which strives to give a set of fixed and stringent rules for reduction of individual greenhouse gas emissions, in each of seven areas, by 90 percent. . . .
Sharon and Miranda call their initiative the Riot for Austerity 90% Emissions Reduction Project. They choose the 90 percent mark because climatologists now generally agreethat we need to reduce manmade greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by the year 2050 in order to prevent the melting of the icecaps and Greenland ice sheet that would cause irreversible change to the climate. Because American’s emit way more greenhouse gas than most of the rest of the world’s peoples, we must reduce our emissions by 94 percent in order to meet the planetary target of 80 percent. Sharon and Miranda rounded from 94 percent to 90 to make it easy (joke!).
They have a Yahoo discussion group, where people who want to attempt the 90 percent reduction—or even less stringent targets—can discuss. The rules for the Riot for Austerity are based on the average US consumption in each of seven areas. The project targets are calculated as a 90 percent reduction on those averages. I’ve summarized the targets for each of the seven areas below:
Gasoline:
* 50 gallons per PERSON, per YEAR
Electricity:
* 1,100 kWh per HOUSEHOLD, per YEAR
Heating and cooking energy:
* If your home uses propane or natural gas, 100 therms per HOUSEHOLD, per YEAR
* If your home uses heating oil, 75 gallons per HOUSEHOLD, per YEAR.
* If your home uses locally and sustainably harvested wood: Unlimited
* If your home uses unsustainably harvested wood, 5 cords per HOUSEHOLD, per YEAR
Garbage:
* 0.45 pounds of garbage per PERSON, per DAY
Water:
* 10 gallons per PERSON, per DAY
Consumer goods:
* $1,000 worth per HOUSEHOLD, per YEAR.
* Used goods count only ten percent of their purchase price (so you could buy $10,000 of used stuff).
* Used goods that were donated to Goodwill or the church rummage sale, etc, can be bought in unlimited amounts (since might otherwise just end up in landfill).
Food:
* No less than 70% of food purchases should be organic and be grown within 100 miles.
* No more than 25% of food purchases should be bulk, dry goods (flour, pasta, etc) from more than 100 miles away.
* No more than 5% of food purchases should be wet goods (meat, fruit, shampoo) from more than 100 miles away.
I know that we (Pipers) can absolutely improve what we're currently doing - and we need to try. I don't think we should be waiting for the government to force us to fix the global impact issues. We have the power to make changes. We have the power to fix this.
Brian and I have been talking about raising chickens for the eggs (not meat). We're not vegetarians, but I'm absolutely certain neither one of us would be able to butcher an animal. Neither one of us is so fond of meat that we couldn't give it up. Maybe local fishing is the solution for us. We raise our own vegetables and preserve what we can't immediately eat. Local milk and other dairy products are not difficult to obtain. We'll ponder this a bit more, and once we have a plan in place, I'll post about it.