It's been on my mind, a lot.

Shawn and I generate 13 tons of CO2 a year just in home energy use and travel - that's about 312 trees we need to plant. Minus the fact that trees eventually die and give off CO2 in the process.

Obviously we don't have anywhere to plant 312 trees, so, we need to make some other changes if we want to become carbon neutral.

We could, at some point, buy a hybrid. But who knows how long they will last and if the CO2 produced in production will give them an equal (or even greater) ecological footprint than their non-hybrid counterparts. I actually heard someone say that hybrids were a joke because they were electric and electricity was generated with fuel. I can't believe this myth is still alive and thriving - didn't the auto manufacturers make it very clear that hybrids don't plug in anywhere? For reference, the electricity part of the hybrid uses kinetic energy from the braking system. Look it up, people.

So there's biodiesel. Which seems the best option. Provided we can keep the companies from ripping up forests to plant the crops for it. Which is already happening in foreign countries.

We're already doing the things we can to conserve in an apartment. Kinda.

We're using fluorescent bulbs, but we're bad about leaving lights on - it's a habit I've been working on my whole adult life, and still fail a lot of the time. I hate a dark living space, and really, would have all the lights on all the time (other than the bedroom, which is the only one that wouldn't shine into the livingroom) if it weren't such a waste. When we buy our own space, one of the things on my to-do list will be occupancy sensor lights.

We recycle. I'm trying to get to the point where I recycle or reuse almost everything. I'm conscious about the amount of hot water I use. I keep the air conditioning on 80 when Shawn's not here to try to make up for it being on 76 or lower when he is.

We need to get the cable box and TiVo plugged into the computer power strip so we can flip the TV, PS2, and DVD player off at the switch and stop the phantom loads. We need to replace Shawn's desktop with either a computer that can be shut off without it not wanting to come back on, or with a laptop.

Living in an apartment we can't change the appliances or windows, weather strip, insulate, install ceiling fans, etc. We can't even change our shower head. I need to do better an minimizing my impact of being at home so much, which I think is what really boosts it (68% of those 14 tons is from the home).

I've been pondering green tags. It seems like such a lazy, short-term solution, though. I get the concept, and I think it might work for people like us, who will one day be able to implement actual carbon reducing solutions for our own production. But what about people who just buy tags and then don't worry about changing anything?

I just want to do more. I've been trying to lessen my footprint for a while, and I feel like I've hit a stagnant place where I'm not sure what to do next. I wrote our mayor about becoming one of Sierra Club's "Cool Cities", but I don't think just writing a letter is going to do much.

I want to do more. We'll see where that goes.