Calculating Your Carbon Footprint

In our last post we discussed why we should eat local foods.  One of the reasons was to lower our carbon emissions, or carbon footprint.  Direct and indirect emissions of carbon is the main contributor of global climate change.  So reducing our carbon footprint will help reduce the effects of climate change.  To do our part, my family has reduced our travel, purchased fuel efficient cars (one is a hybrid Toyota Prius), put in a 4 KW photovoltaic system that provides about 80% of our electricity, reduced our consumption, buy local and bulk as much as possible, and we use organic methods to grow most of our vegetables.

To figure out your carbon footprint, there are several online calculators.  The Nature Conservancy has a nice one located here.   There are also several hints there on things you can do such as switching out all your incandescent light bulbs for compact florescent (CFLs) bulbs. Switching out even one bulb saves 500 pounds of coal which reduces CO2 pollution by 1430 pounds over the lifetime of the bulb!   Don't forget to "buy local" and support your local businesses.  This is particularly critical during this economic downturn.  Your neighbors need your support and your planet can use the lower carbon emissions:)

Why eat locally grown foods?

Eating locally grown foods is a great idea.  Why?  One reason is that the fresher the produce, the higher the nutritional value of that produce.  So locally grown foods should have more nutrients than those that are shipped from miles away.  Now lets look at some of the ecological costs.  How much energy is used to transport that food to our table?  According to David Pimentel, a professor emeritus of Cornell University, lettuce traveling to New York from California requires at least 1.4 times the energy to ship it than is used to grow and harvest it.  Keep in mind that the average distance our food travels to get to our table is 1500 miles!  

What can we do and what is happening in Cortland to address the local foods issue?  Grow your own!  There are lots of gardens throughout Cortland County including some that are CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture).  Farmers markets and local stands are another way to buy local foods.  Local grocery stores (Like P & C and Tops) have begun putting up signs letting you know some of their produce is locally grown. Please see the links below for some places where you can find locally grown and locally made products in Cortland County.

Archive of Local Food Menus

Below is an archive of local food menus.

June 27, 2009 local dinner menu:

BBQ Cobblestone Valley Chicken (with Dinosaur BBQ sauce from Syracuse, NY); salad from our garden including lettuce, spinach, turnips, and radishes; and dessert from the East Side Bakery.

April 27, 2009 local dinner menu:

Roasted Cobblestone Valley Chicken (marinated in Salamida's State Fair Lemon Garlicious Johnson City, NY), broccoli from our 2008 garden (frozen), and fresh asparagus from the 2009 garden.

March 13, 2009 local lunch menu:

Grilled Cheese made with homemade mozzarella cheese and butter from Twin Oaks Dairy raw organic milk (Truxton, NY) and olive and herb bread from Lisa's Pane di Casa (Cortland, NY). Minestrone Soup made from canned, frozen, and dried veggies from our garden.


February 22, 2009 local breakfast menu:

New Hope Mills Buckwheat pancakes (Moravia, NY) with local blueberries picked last summer; Delavan Farms Maple Syrup (Cincinnatus, NY); and Cobblestone Valley Farm pork sausage (Preble, NY).


January 25, 2009 local dinner menu:

Homemade Cuban rolls using flour from New Hope Mills (Moravia, NY); Pork BBQ using Cobblestone Valley Farm pork (Preble, NY) and Dinosaur BBQ sauce (Syracuse, NY); butternut squash grown in our garden; broccoli (frozen) also grown in our garden; and Applesauce made from NYS Cortland apples purchased from Hollenbeck's Cider Mill (Virgil, NY).

Green Cortland - Our First Post

Welcome to Green Cortland.  This blog focuses on sharing many of the good things that are happening in Cortland County, NY toward a sustainable future.  This includes sharing where to get local and organic products, relocalization efforts of community members, and what "green" activities are germinating:)  We'll also share some of our trials and tribulations as my family continues to work on lowering our ecological footprint.