MONTHLY FEATURE
Do you know the definition of Carbon Footprint?
We hear this term used frequently these days, but what does it really mean for you and me? The term “carbon footprint” is defined as the amount of greenhouse gases that are emitted into the atmosphere each year by a person, household, building, organization or company. One of the main sources is the home according to the Federal Environmental Protection Agency. Activities outside of the home, like driving or flying, are part of the problem too. But what we do in the kitchen, living room, bedroom and bathroom are also important, including heating, cooking, or using products whose manufacture produces emissions that can be harmful.
Activities that can increase your carbon footprint include the simple task of mowing your lawn if the device uses gas or electric. Or lighting a gas or electric fireplace raises the number, while a wood-burning fireplace does not.
Breaking old habits is not easy, but experts say that the rewards are worth it, not only for the environment, but also for the pocketbook. Those who reduce their carbon footprint by decreasing their energy use will reduce energy costs as well.
Green Bonus: Many Web sites offer calculators to help figure out carbon profiles. Cool Climate Carbon Footprint calculator ( coolclimate.berkeley.edu); the Low Impact Living calculator (lowimpactliving.com); the World Resource Institutes calculator (safeclimate.net).
Don’t defer maintaining our community’s landscape and aesthetics -
Adopt a Park, Street or Wash today!
During tight economic times, it is our natural desire to cut back on many things that cost money - particularly maintenance of our vehicles, equipment, buildings and even landscape. These seem like the easy target for us to cut costs by putting off routine for a few more weeks, months, or even years. But, remember that deferring maintenance can lead to higher costs down the road! Take an automobile, for example. Yes, we can save fuel by driving less and carpooling, bike riding, combining errands, and much more. But, every few thousand miles your car still needs an oil change, air in the tires, and other routine maintenance. Without following that routine, you wind up with tires that can be a drag on fuel economy, an engine that can overheat and functions less efficiently, and even need a new vehicle because yours simply doesn’t work anymore!
If we look at this in terms of the landscape in our community, similar analogies can be made between maintaining our community’s beautiful environment, and sustaining our economy and its beauty. We are fortunate to already live in one of the most beautiful and unique regions in the world. However, at the street level and even individual properties, if we don’t control litter - and recognize additional threats such as invasive plants that need to be removed - we are in danger of losing some of the natural beauty that our community is known for. This has the potential to affect not only our individual property values, but also our community’s viability as tourism decreases and companies that are considering Tucson as a headquarters or expansion site are turned off by litter and a scarred desert.
Tucson Clean & Beautiful has recently joined forces with Pima Association of Governments, the Southern Arizona Leadership Council, Tucson Regional Economic Opportunities, and many local government jurisdictions to begin cleaning up some of our region’s most heavily used tourist and local corridors. In January 2008 we cleaned up the airport to downtown corridor along Tucson Blvd. and Kino Parkway, as well as Starr Pass Blvd. and Mission Rd. in May. From these efforts, several new groups have committed to ongoing Adopt-a-Street projects along these corridors! But there is much more to be done.
Please get involved - I invite you to join Tucson Clean & Beautiful through your office, religious organization, school, - or any community group - to help clean up litter. Then, also learn about buffelgrass and other invasive plants that threaten our unique Sonoran Desert environment, and get involved by removing any of these problematic plants on your property and volunteering in some of our most sensitive natural areas as well!
Through Tucson Clean & Beautiful, community volunteer groups presently have adopted 135 sites throughout the Tucson region. Over the past two decades, this amounts to more than 180,000 service hours given toward the goal of cleaning up and beautifying our community’s public spaces for all to enjoy.
