Lately we’ve been so overwhelmed by all of the “green” talk in the media. I even picked up the October issue of Field and Stream and learned that climatological changes are forcing duck hunters to go farther north than ever before. Heath Wilson of Maverick Transportation substantiated their comments.

What a wake-up call! It made me think the time is right to better understand some of these “green” terms and what you and I can do to make our planet more livable for future generations. Tom Gelinas’ recent columns have done an excellent job of teaching us what the “SmartWay” initiative really means to fleet operators and their customers.

Let’s take the Smartway concept a step farther and apply it to our own daily thought processes and operations. We’ve heard the terms “greenhouse gases” (responsible for holding heat in the Earth’s atmosphere) and “global warming” (the result of excessive greenhouse gases). The newest term on the block is “carbon footprint.” What does it mean?

Carbon footprint is the term used to describe what type and how much energy we utilize in our daily lives. The simple fact is that America’s carbon footprint looks like it belongs to Bigfoot! We’re all guilty of taking our sources of energy for granted.
Primary carbon footprint is a measure of our direct emissions of CO2 from the burning of hydrocarbon fuels for domestic energy consumption including transportation. Two examples of excessive primary carbon footprint are our use of SUVs when we could easily drive smaller vehicles and our unwillingness to utilize public transportation.

Secondary carbon footprint is a measure of the indirect CO2 emissions from the total life cycle of the products we use. Examples of excessive secondary carbon footprint are our larger than necessary expenditures for new clothes, homes, and automobiles. Even relatively simple things such as the use of bottled water instead of tap water adds to our secondary carbon footprint since energy is required to manufacture, ship, and dispose of the plastic containers.

The most rapid increases in energy consumption are currently coming from countries we helped industrialize such as India and China. How-ever, Americans’ carbon footprint makes the rest of the world look like amateurs. We need to learn a lesson from SmartWay and begin to consider both our private and public energy consumption.

By now, all of us should be looking at ways to reduce the energy dependence of our trucking activities. APUs, better aerodynamics, improved engines, etc., are examples with which we should be very familiar. But what about shortening trip lengths or eliminating trips altogether? SmartWay is looking at the very fundamentals of how we do business.

When I utilize this type of approach in my personal life, I am appalled! The three largest contributors to an individual’s carbon footprint are electricity (12 percent); gas, oil and coal (15 percent); and recreation and leisure (14 percent). Look around your home and notice how many electrical items you really don’t need.  For example, look at the number of electrical appliances plugged into battery chargers. These chargers consume electricity constantly! Couldn’t we just recharge batteries only after they go dead? Look at oil, coal and gas usage. Do I really need to keep my shop heated to 60 degrees F?

And if you consider leisure time activities, I probably don’t need a 500-CID engine in my street rod, which gets no better than seven miles per gallon. Perhaps I could get along on less!

The point is we should all take a hard look at how we consume energy and try to reduce our carbon footprint, both publicly and privately.