"The Real Effects of Global Warming." Let's be Smart about "Going Green"

On today's NBC 11's: The Bay Area at 6's "Going Green Report," was a showcase of a family in Santa Clara county who installed the county's first residential wind turbine after watching Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth and flying to Alaska to witness "the real effects of global warming," when they decided that they needed to do something. The NBC 11 news story continued that family member who installed the turbine says, "that at least he'll be able to look his grandkids in the eye, and tell them Grandpa tried to do his part."

Now let's do some math here. The terrapass flight CO2 emmissions calculator tells us that a round trip flight to Alaska generates approximately 1,571 pounds of CO2. Yes, by flying to see "effects of global warming" in Alaska, the family generously added to global warming. And that's just one person. Let's assume that only two people in the family went. That's 3,142 lbs of CO2. Their wind turbine generated 11 kilowatt hours of electricity over the last 3 or 4 days, let's be generous and say 3 days. The project cost the family $20,000 dollars. The Vermont Earth Institute's carbon worksheet points out that on average if you generate 1 kilowatt hour of electricity, you emit 1.5 lbs of carbon. So they, reduce their footprint by a very optimistic estimate of 5.5 lbs per day.

The math doesn't lie. The "Going Green Report" family will need to run their $20,000 wind turbine for about to 571 days to make up for the carbon that was spewed forth on their enlightening trip to Alaska. That's over one and a half years! The family needs to run their $20K wind turbine for over one and a half years to make up for the carbon they emitted on their trip to see "the real effects of global warming." In my opinion, they are the real effects of global warming.

Look, I love the Earth. I think "Going Green" is extremely important. I applaud the effort and money spent by the showcased family's part, but let's be smart about how we reduce our emissions. The real effects of global warming are right in front of us and can be reduced if we make smart, efficient choices in our daily lives. We need to encourage citizens of the world to make smart and efficiently green decisions, not spend tens of thousands of dollars on a fancifully delusional pipe dream of "Going Green." The easiest solution to global warming is not spending more, but spending less, and yes, cutting back on flights to Alaska.