Jumping on the bandwagon late as usual (pretty much par for the course for me)

I suppose you've all heard this already, but today is was Blog Action Day. As far as I can tell, this means that we're all supposed to post about the environment in some way or another with the express intent of getting Al Gore's attention so that he will either (A. run for President again or (B. marry one of us. Much as I'm a fan of the man, he actually seems pretty happy with Tipper, so if I'm rooting for either one of those, I'll go with A.

I like to think I'm fairly environmentally minded... I am probably the only one at my office who actually turns off her monitor when she leaves, and I routinely fish aluminum cans out of the garbage can in the kitchen and transfer them to the recycling bin a mere two inches away. At home, I wash my clothes in cold water and hang almost everything to dry. I've replaced most of my light bulbs with compact fluorescents (and I have perfectly logical excuses reasons for not replacing the few regular bulbs that remain). I recycle everything I can, even when it means cleaning out a quite nasty neglected jar of something or other that's grown moldy in the fridge. I use rags instead of napkins or paper towels at least 98% of the time. I reuse Ziploc bags and wash or recycle aluminum foil. I don't bag and toss my grass clippings; I leave them messily on the lawn. I pay extra on my Xcel Energy bill to support Windsource wind energy. I have a programmable thermostat. I turn the water off while I brush my teeth. Hell, today, I didn't even take a shower! That's my contribution to Blog Action Day! OK, actually, that's my contribution to the cause of "Damn, I was tired this morning, and another twenty minutes of sleep sounded way more important than a shower, particularly when I showered yesterday afternoon." Potato, po-tah-toe. Pish posh.

Anyway. My point is, I thought I was doing enough small things as to be considered a fairly greenish sort of girl. It's the small things that add up and matter, after all, is it not? Then I took the Earth Day Footprint Quiz (which Sognatrice linked to in her Blog Action Day post today). And OH MY WORD. Suddenly I'm looking at people in Hummers drinking out of Styrofoam cups and saying, "Oh hello, Kettle. I'm Pot. You sure do look black."

People, I don't even want to tell you how I scored on that quiz. I am far, far, far too ashamed. I did so poorly that, if our results were cataloged in some national database for our nation's leaders to peruse, I would probably be invited to the next $1,000 per plate dinner put on by George W. and his crew. If those results are right, then if everyone lived like me, we'd need 72 planets to sustain us. OK, so I am exaggerating. It wasn't anywhere near 72. But it was a far cry from the 1.2 Sognatrice scored, so it jarred me anyway.

I'd actually like to take issue with the Footprint Quiz, as I think there are plenty of things it doesn't measure that could marginally balance out the things it does. The things that hurt my results most severely are significant, sure, but they'd also involve major lifestyle changes to remedy: (1. I drive too damn far to work, and there is no feasible public transport to take instead, and (2. I'm a lazy, convenience foods sort of girl who doesn't pay near enough attention to how far her food traveled or how many resources were used in packaging it. The latter I can work on (baby steps, baby steps). The former is tougher to remedy.

In truth, though, there are a whole lot more things I could be doing. I could renew my recently expired TerraPass, for starters. That would assuage at least a bit of my driving guilt. I could remember to bring my Chico Bags every time I go shopping, instead of just one in three. I could turn off my kitchen light when I'm not in there. (And how often am I in there, really? You all know how infrequently I cook!) I could refuse to buy any more Lean Cuisines or Healthy Choice lunches until they package them in burnable paper (like Amy's Organic and Cedarlane) instead of non-recyclable plastic. (Yes, burning is a problem as well, but in Minneapolis, burned garbage is converted into energy, so supposedly none of it goes in a landfill, making it at least a partially justified trade-off, anyway.) I could do some of the things mentioned in the posts and comments at Bleeding Espresso and Marmite Breath today.

Or, I could do some of the things all of YOU suggest. Tell me, what are YOU doing to make sure we're not living in a horrific wasteland by 2016? We'll get back to my normally scheduled frivolity soon enough, really, but for now, I'm curious about everyone's thoughts on this.