There is a predicament I face with the type of work I do. It is one that is pushed aside because it must be. It is the fact that I will drive perhaps thousands of kms a year to do eco-restoration work.

One thing that must be cleared up is the separation of ground and air environmentalism. It’s something that I will be writing about in the months to come, and something that I need to focus on because of the emissions I create while carrying out work.

So, to properly assess my environmental impacts on the job the first thing I do is separate ground from water from air. Then, within those three sections I ask myself if I’m really doing all I can to be friendly to them. Here’s what I will do that creates this inner dialogue : rent a pickup, drive to ferry, 1.5 hrs on ferry to mainland, drive 80kms to get materials (adds to weight of pickup), drive 250kms to get to client’s site, assess and work, drive to closest town, drive to site (repeat 2x), drive home ~ +600kms.

It’s a driver’s world and I have limited options for transporting myself. Furthermore, you should see the highway and logging roads I take to get to my recent sites. Gnarly! Hybrids are not yet an option.

Since I feel a little guilty about the air, I focus on the benefits my work creates. In this case I’m restoring slope stability off the side of a logging road to mitigate threats to a nearby stream caused by the installation of powerlines. Hydroelectric transmission lines at that; renewable, yet often controversial power.

Here’s the question: does my ecology-related, erosion control work offset CO2 emissions I create to get to the work? No. And in my mind the offset needs to take a different route. I offset my work-related emissions by minimizing @ home emissions: I don’t have a car for personal use, live AGAP (as green as possible), conserve water, and wish I could compost more often. Does that mean I can relax on my on-the-ground environmentalism @ home because I restore degraded land @ work? Nope, I stick within one column because for example, I don’t feel that composting more offsets how large one’s SUV may be.

Overall, urban living offers limited options for land-based environmentalism, but many more options for emission and energy conservation. My tip here is if you can’t act equally (as I cannot for work), pick a specialty. Work on each with equal priority, but really care hard in one in particular area.

Busted Resource…always here to help you care hard. (patent pending)