Paradise Found » Consumer Consequences

Consumer Consequences

May 31, 2008 at 4:46 pm · Filed under home education

When we came home to trashed carpet and a house in need of paint, we made what seemed like a good decision: we went green. We’ve repainted 75% of the house with low VOC paint and the carpet we chose to undo the damage is made from plastic bottles. We’ve also wrestled our way into a new hybrid vehicle.

When I spotted the Consumer Consequences quiz on Larramie’s site, I thought surely I’d do well. Um, not so. My impact on the earth? It would take 2.5 earths to sustain all the people in the world if they lived like me. Color me amazed. In watching my score, I did well - .7 earths - until I hit the travel and food portions of the test. Flying between here and Hawaii is not so helpful to the environment, nor is my consumption of coffee and wine. I wonder how many homegrown tomatoes I’ll have to eat to negate my splurges?

I’m curious to know how the rest of you stack up.

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lapazfarm said,

May 31, 2008 @ 5:15 pm

I got 2.3
I’m not sure why my food score was so high(5). It really drove my score up.

tribeofautodidacts said,

June 1, 2008 @ 2:07 am

UGLY! 5.6. I was kind of surprised. we don’t shop much (except at Goodwill), eat little meat, and we recycle. Our lowest score was waste (1) and our highest was food (8)

Shelly said,

June 1, 2008 @ 9:22 am

Ugh, 2.8. I knew there was a basic problem with food, all around. This just proves it to me. I will say it is awful hard to walk/bike when you live miles from anywhere. So we just don’t go anywhere.

Miranda said,

June 1, 2008 @ 12:00 pm

Arghh … 2.6! But I beg mitigating factors. We scored pretty well (1 or 0) on home, electricity, waste and consumer goods. We scored a 3 on transportation, but and I can’t really quibble with that because with our remote location I have to drive huge distances to get my older kids to their music lessons.

But we scored a 5 on food, even though we’re vegetarians, because we eat a lot of eggs/dairy. However most of that is organic stuff that is raised either on our own property (in the case of eggs) or on our neighbours’ (in the case of milk, butter & cheese). Is it just me, or does food seem excessively weighted in this model?

Tim said,

June 2, 2008 @ 2:22 am

3.5 — which is roughly what I would have expected.

Plenty of obvious ways to improve here. Step One: get back in the steady habit of bicycle commuting. Step Two: more vegetables total, and more from local growers.

paradisefound said,

June 2, 2008 @ 5:27 am

I think that this quiz is a good eye opener, but it is definitely missing some shades of gray. There are many factors not taken into consideration, such as Miranda’s use of local dairy products. Had I been in Kona, at least a portion of my coffee consumption would have been local, but there’s no room to indicate such. Even so, I think it’s another good reminder to be aware of how we can improve.

AkuTyger said,

June 4, 2008 @ 11:31 am

I got 2.4. But it’s hard to judge how accurate a rating it is because living in Brasil we are so much more frugal. Nearly EVERYTHING is recycled here - someone can use it to insulate their house or make a roof, or stuff something, or whatever. About 90% of our fruits and veggies are grown within a 2 hour area, and most of the meat probably is too. My big numbers came from food and from travel - going to visit relatives in the USA takes a toll too.

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