This carbon footprint tracking thing is another scam of our consumer culture. Do not get me wrong—I am just as much a tree-loving hippy as anyone else—but seriously, companies are not doing anything to alleviate your carbon footprint. They are just helping you feel better by spending your money with them. I sat through the third investment meeting this quarter, where I heard from a company that had the bright idea of holding corporations accountable for carbon tracking. According to this last business plan, companies need an outlet to demonstrate or justify their carbon savings by – you guessed it – buying their service. A subscription service, nonetheless.
I was pondering this concept this morning. I was considering whose brainchild it was to create a term that would get people to start thinking of their travel and other energy expenditure in terms of a “footprint.” I just laughed when I learned that most people point to the advertising campaign British Petroleum ran in the 2000s. Of course, it was an energy company that came up with this idea. This is not the point of this article, however. If you want to track your carbon footprint to help yourself feel better, that is fine. Not my place to argue for or against that concept.
I am more into direct and immediate impacts. Like when I woke up this morning and realized that I left my gas stove burning all night long. Wow, was that grill hot this morning! A side benefit is that no carbon is left inside my grill. Everything that could be burned has been burned. At least it is clean and ready to go for the summer. Luckily, I did not burn my backyard down; that would have been an environmental disaster that would be hard for me to ignore. The other immediate impact is out-of-control consumerism, for which I am completely guilty.
I do not know the planetary impact my family’s Amazon addiction has. I am sure that someone could run some calculations for me by using some carbon footprint algorithm, but I will tell you one significant impact that I am starting to notice. I noted that I could calculate a rough order of magnitude on volume and weight distribution in my Amazon order history. With a little math (yes, I am a geek) and with a few assumptions, I could calculate the total expected mass of intake that my family will have in 1 year (just on Amazon, not including other sources). I then went out and looked at my “black” trash can that the city provided me with. After calculating the cubic feet of that trash can and assuming a general weight distribution, I came to a conclusion. If we keep going at this rate, we will be literally buried in stuff in less than 15 years. We are not removing stuff at a fast enough pace.
Forget my impact on the environment, I will not have any room to live in this house. I will have to buy another one just to keep up with the flow of goods into my front door. Armed with this new intel, I decided to take a careful look at my spending habits. There are some pretty awesome AI tools out there now for crawling data, and with a few quick downloads of my account details, I was able to do some pretty fun queries. I was really proud of myself until I figured out how much I am spending annually on subscriptions. I will not say the number; it is embarrassing. I hold my head in shame. It was then I decided to declare war.
Two new rules for me to live by:
- I am not allowed to by anything on Amazon, unless I go around the house and garage and find objects equal 2x the weight by volume of what I want to buy. I then must dispose of or give them away. I do not expect to enforce this rule on my family. I would most likely be burned at the stake as a heretic, but I can take control of myself. In truth, I am probably the culprit!
- I have figured out how often I use an application or subscription. That is pretty easy, as there are tools for this as well. Second, I have figured out how much each subscription costs me annually. By triangulating these two together, I have come up with a factor. If the factor is low enough – meaning that I do not use it enough to justify the value of the subscription – then I cancel it immediately.
For starters, I wiped out all subscriptions today with a 0 factor. This means that I have not used the subscription this year. I was able to delete over 4.3K worth of annual subscriptions in rapid succession. I then forced myself to put the money I saved away to accrue interest for the next few years. I will accumulate money instead of wasting money on useless consumerism. This will not be a lot, but it is the principle that matters here! When you are at war, every inch matters.
So, my war has begun. I will not die in my house buried by various objects in boxes with smiley faces on them. I will not enter retirement with an annual subscription burden that exceeds my expected retirement earnings. I have to turn the tide now while there is still a chance for survival! We are being invaded by expert marketing in consumer product goods. They are really good at convincing us to buy and buy alot. We do not stand a chance! Do not let yourself slip into the darkness quietly! Fight while you still can!
