NBC Universal released this week the results of a poll regarding consumers’ attitudes towards the environment and the actions they may or may not take to protect the environment.  AP reported that people have largely embraced recycling bottles and cans, and are inclined to turn down thermostats to save energy but that some paths toward a greener Earth aren't as easily taken — or turned into action.

The article made me think about some of my own actions towards a more sustainable earth which actually contradict themselves:

Commuting

I bought a Smart Car…

(a photo of my actual car I found on Flickr taken by a stranger). 

I used to take the commuter train to work everyday: public transportation = good, driving alone in a car = bad.   I really like my Smart Car, what can you say, it is a convertible.  So I went from public transportation to driving a small environmentally friendly car nearly everyday.  Brilliant. 

Food

Eating locally grown fruits, vegetables and (if you must) beef is the environmentally conscious choice.  But…. Beef….. Kobe…… wow.  You cannot get much less local for me than Japan.  It is about 9000 miles between Kobe and Chicago.  That is about 13lbs of CO₂ transportation emissions just to get one pound of succulent, luscious, richly marbled, mouth watering beef on my table.  I do not have Kobe regularly, so I guess I’m ok with that. 

Coffee

I buy organic coffee from my local, non-chain coffeehouse…in a disposable cup.  I only started recently using a reusable travel mug.  Sitting in traffic in my idling car everyday, I realized that when I was on the train it was too much trouble for me to carry an empty travel mug back and forth.  But now that I can leave the travel mug in my environmentally friendly car that I use everyday instead of public transportation, using a travel mug is not so much of a burden.  Not sure the calculation of this trade off…

Printing

I do my part and buy recycled content paper, recycle the paper I use (either through office recycling program or scratch paper for my kids on stuff not printed double sided), and print double sided whenever I can.  As a construction lawyer and crafting sustainable legal strategies for my green clients, however, I still print out a LOT of documents.  I’m still of a certain age where I tend to digest differently when reading something on a computer screen than reading something on paper in my hands.  I don’t usually print out every email, but some things just need to go in a file. 

Water Conservation

We do the little things around our house to conserve water: have a small rain barrel to water the outside plants, use the old dog water to water the inside plants (dog saved from a shelter, but use plastic bags for her poop), only run dishwasher when really full, wash most clothes in cool water, etc.  I think most of these conservation measures are negated by the really long hot showers I tend to take. 

Clothes

We have two little kids.  We tried for awhile buying nothing but organic clothes, locally made when possible, all natural materials.  Those clothes were great…for the two weeks or so that they fit.  These kids are growing like weeds (I’m familiar with weeds from my non-chemically treated lawn).  Those fancy clothes get expensive and apparently we still need to eat.  So now their clothes are mostly dirt cheap and of questionable origin, but these kids know all about recycling the excess packaging from the processed food they get to eat. 

This post is a more on the sustainable side as opposed to the legal side of this blog (a blog which should have a black, power conserving background, as opposed to an eye pleasing white background).  I guess the moral of this post is that it is difficult to be No Impact Man and it is ok not to be – at least I think so. Maybe the little things you do offset some of the more environmentally onerous things you do, but it is better than not doing those little things at all.  Pick your most polluting industry, product or practice, and there is probably something little one can do to improve the impact from that product or service – and isn’t that marginal improvement better than nothing?