Carbon Footprint Obsession Disease

Yep, it's a disease...you mean you haven't heard of it?

Maybe you've felt it, however. I know I do.

It may have started in me in the 1970s, when I was still under the age of 10. Not kidding...only at the time, I didn't really understand exactly "what it was" that was bothering me.

Maybe it was watching carbon emissions spewing out of the cars at the time in a cloud of blue and black smoke, and thinking "Huh. That stinky stuff probably isn't good for the air. If you add it all up over time, what are the consequences of all of it going to be on the atmosphere?"

I was probably as young as 7 or 8 at the time, and my mind was starting to pine over this stuff...and then I'd sky rocket the water bill by taking the garden hose to a mound of dirt to create streams in make-believe natural settings for my G.I. Joe and his jeep.

What can I say, I was Mr. Supersophiticated... way ahead of my time.

So you can only imagine where that's evolved around 30 years later.

I don't consider myself to be much of a worrywart, but I do have an obsessive-compulsive side...and I'd say the subject of the environment, and the behaviors related to my "carbon footprint," well...I guess they plague my brain.

Maybe plague isn't the right word, because it's all for a good cause...I say plague in the context that I feel the weight of the issue on my shoulders EVERYWHERE I GO...and I almost can't look at ANYTHING without trying to assess the carbon footprint equation it introduces to the planet.

It's attached to EVERYTHING. The behaviors of strangers. Which waste receptacle to use, and why isn't the glass one provided? Driving by fast food drive-thru lines with the rows of cars idling. Food consumption and its sources. Guilt at the gas pump on why I haven't picked up a hybrid yet...and contemplating if I'll still feel guilt at the pump even when I have a hybrid. The oil used in paving roads. Building design and efficiency of heating and cooling systems. The exhaust trail behind the plane flying overhead. The images on television of ice caps melting and polar bears in peril.

AAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGHHHHHH!!! There...now I feel better.

Anyone out there experiencing any symptoms? S