michelle kaufmann designs

In celebration of Earth Day this year, my goal is to have a carbon neutral day, meaning I’ll net zero carbon emissions. Throughout the day, I plan do everything I can to cut carbon emissions out of my regular daily activities. For example, since my home is completely solar powered, I’m going to charge up all my electronic devices – laptop, iPhone, etc – at home before leaving for the office, which I’ll drive to in my hybrid and where the only thing I’ll use for illumination will be the natural sunlight coming through the many windows. Whatever carbon emissions I do create I will offset not by purchasing carbon credits but by planting seeds to grow trees for future generations.

Even while doing my best to keep my carbon footprint at a minimum, some emissions are just going to be unavoidable. Besides the fact that my Prius will emit some carbon during my drive, the industrial processes that went into building my car, laptop, cell phone, and even my PV panels were responsible for emitting some carbon, which I would rightly have to take into account. The fact of the matter is that carbon emissions are inescapable; every person on Earth breathes the stuff out every minute of every day. But that’s OK - carbon is as necessary to life and the planet’s wellbeing as oxygen and water are.  What’s important to keep in mind in any conversation about carbon emissions is that it’s not carbon itself that is so problematic. Rather, the problem is the unsustainable profusion of emissions produced through human activity and the way those emissions are throwing off the planet’s natural balance, thereby causing climate change.

So for Earth Day, I am going to do all that I can to cut down the emissions for which I am responsible.  If you want to know exactly what that is going to mean, then be sure to follow me on Twitter all day on Wednesday (@mkaufmann) because I will be tweeting as often as possible on the choices I’m making, the things I’m doing or not doing, and how it’s all goes. Then on Thursday I will layout all the changes I made throughout the day as well as my calculations of how much carbon I saved because of them and how many seeds I ended up planting to make up for the carbon emissions I just couldn’t help (not counting my exhales ). Stay tuned and happy Earth Day!