Personal CO2 emissions .... but why

Our church recently hosted a climate change talk by ol' friend and fellow U of Ill alum Katharine Hayhoe Farley.  Her talk was referenced in the sermon on Sunday, which surely was the first time ever in our pulpit.  You could say that our church is a little late taking an interest in the topic, but our church never mentions political issues (save abortion about once per year).

Moving on, these mentions have led to some discussions in our small group and, I'm sure, other groups of people in the church.

First, I was interested to check on my family's CO2 emissions (the standard method of determining our impact on the climate).  So here are the major contributors (from http://www.terrapass.com/, but other calculators seemed to give the same results):

Chad, Jill and kids rough estimation of CO2 annual emissions (lb CO2/year)

Driving (one car, ~29 mpg, 6000 miles per year)                                 4000

Flying (one trip per year, 4 people to the West)                                   5500

home electricity ( around 500 kWh/month, assuming coal-generated)  12000

home natural gas (around 880 therms/year)                                         12000

So where could we cut back?  We might be able to drive less per year, but that would require visiting family in Tennessee and Michigan less often.  We don't drive much in town, but I suppose I could always ride my bike to basketball and softball games.  We could avoid driving to local state parks.  That's a bummer list.

As for flying, we could tell my family that we refuse to visit them because the impact on the climate is too great.  I suspect that they would be upset, but they would be willing to visit us more often. However, if they did, the net effect of our choice would be nullified.  [We could take the train or drive out there (would it take 4 days each way?)]  

At home, we could switch to LED lights and solar water heating.  I have hopes to do these, but not soon.  We could get PV, but I'm not rich.

Let's see, what did I leave out?  Water (must be pumped, treated, and treated after use).  Food growing, transporting, and cooking (minus our contribution already counted).

What about work?  I work in the same cubicle every day.  For this to happen, my company needs to send salespeople to customers, lead developers to technical conferences, the CEO to CEO-things (most recently SXSW).  Someone needs to make and power our servers, heat/cool/power our office, etc, etc.

What is my share of our military CO2 emissions?  Police emissions?  Hospitals?  Infrastructure construction?

Probably someone has calculated all of these things, but by this point I'm losing interest.  I really don't care how we're doing compared to other families of 4 in our income bracket, age group, location, etc. etc.  I've gotten reasonably close to my minimum for the near term.  

My creativity for becoming part of a solution is admittedly tiny.  I'll list a few ideas, but if you have more please share.  

1.  Join a movement.  Any suggestions?

2.  Raise awareness among friends and family (does this blog count?).  Help when possible

3.  Become very poor.

4.  Buy carbon offsets a la Al Gore (note:  never.  This is a joke.  Really.)

5.  Develop the CO2-to-oil-anator (note:  thermodynamics matter)
6.  Develop fusion reactor (note:  cost matters)