thinking about my carbon footprint

There's a panel discussion on resilient communities this afternoon based on the 2018 NOVA documentary about "Decoding the Weather Machine." The discussants are an Alfred University environmental science professor (Frederic Beaudry), a sustainable food systems undergrad (Dale Mott Slater), and an MFA graduate student in ceramics (Marianne Chénard). The scientists in the film laid the groundwork for resiliency in the face of climate change and then spent the last portion talking about what we humans can do: we can do nothing; we can adapt; we can act to mitigate the circumstances. The more you mitigate, the less you have to adapt to, say, flood waters, wildfires and smoke-filled skies, and extreme storms.

I was feeling pretty good about my overgrown lawn which captures carbon and stores it. And then I remembered my leaky old house in which I have ten rooms to myself and my stuff (and the heritage stuff that comes with serving as "trustee" for the family homestead). All that space needing heat, presently provided by natural gas. There's plenty I could do to mitigate my carbon footprint beyond my reliance on walking as much as I can to do things around town and letting the plants go wild with capturing carbon. I did establish "Embedded carbon" for the Avery Index as part of my indexing. That doesn't mitigate my carbon use but I could consolidate my winter residing to a few rooms. But then I'd have to decide if I wanted to be upstairs or downstairs.

When I moved to Alfred in 2009 after retiring from New York University, I pretty much lived in the whole house but mostly used the kitchen and bath downstairs, sleeping upstairs. I consolidated downstairs when I rented most of the upstairs to a student friend of my brother's. I spread out again after he graduated and moved to a different space. Then I consolidated upstairs when my ex sister-in-law needed a place to stay after separating from my brother. The upstairs is less encumbered with heritage materials since my parents had rented it quite consistently for several years in the 1990s. I have felt more like I was in "my" space. After Jeanette moved to her new house in Almond (she likes to own a house which I see more as a noose), I spread out some but kept most of my living needs upstairs. That is, my study as well as the kitchen and bath stuff. It works well and I get exercise using the stairs much more. BUT ...

It isn't very smart for energy consumption. It's difficult to close off space when it gets really cold or hot. Upstairs is generally colder in winter and warmer in summer. Alfred rarely gets hot for longer than a few days and generally gets cool overnight so summer works pretty well. I do feel silly that I have to heat the downstairs air in order to have heat upstairs.

With all of this in mind, I took off with enthusiasm to walk downtown to do a bank errand, thinking I'd come home and start pushing and shoving some of that heritage stuff before the panel discussion this afternoon. By "pushing and shoving some heritage stuff," there are some simple tasks like sorting through my dad's and my mom's desks and consolidating all of the paper clips, pencils, pens, paper pads, and other office supplies, keeping what is useful and sharing the surplus. That might make one of those desks usable again as more than a storage cabinet. There are more significant and difficult tasks but it's difficult to get to them with the stacks of unnecessary and generic materials in the way. You see, the house is overgrown too.