Citizens of the West — citizens of the U.S. in particular — use more than our share. You know this. You have probably taken a carbon or ecological footprint quiz. You have probably found that it would require 2 or 3 or 6 Earths to support your lifestyle. Yes, me, too. I am not particularly wasteful, though my friend the No Impact Man feigned horror when I told him I dry my hair. I offered to use a human-powered peddle energy to run my hair dryer. “Why not just stop needing that energy at all?” he asked.

Yes, why not?

While I’m well aware of the need to cut my needs, I’m one of those who hopes that my small lifestyle (small house, small car, small family) will be enough.

It won’t.

I know. I don’t really hope I can continue with my below average number of required Earths, but I do I hope I won’t live to see the crash. I don’t linger too long on that ridiculous hope, but I do linger. Even if I don’t see it with my own eyes, chances are very good my children will see it up close.

But someone will.

So, I have to reduce?

Yes, drastically.

I’ve been following the conversation among those rioting for austerity in the past month. Basic idea: the fair share of U.S. citizens is 94% less than most of us use now, so reduce to our fair share. Go slowly by just reaching for 90% to start.

The Rules of 90% Reduction including 7 areas (quoted from the rules):

1. Gasoline. Average American usage is 500 gallons PER PERSON, PER YEAR. A 90 percent reduction would be 50 gallons PER PERSON, PER YEAR.
2. Electricity. Average US usage is 11,000 kwh PER HOUSEHOLD, PER YEAR, or about 900 kwh PER HOUSEHOLD PER MONTH. A 90% reduction would mean using 1,100 PER HOUSEHOLD, PER YEAR or 90 kwh PER HOUSEHOLD PER MONTH.
3. Heating and Cooking Energy - this is divided into 3 categories, gas, wood and oil. Your household probably uses one of these, and they are not interchangeable. If you use an electric stove or electric heat, this goes under electric usage.
4. Garbage - the average American generates about 4.5 lbs of garbage PER PERSON, PER DAY. A 90% reduction would mean .45 lbs of garbage PER PERSON, PER DAY.
5. Water. The Average American uses 100 Gallons of water PER PERSON, PER DAY. A 90% reduction would mean 10 gallons PER PERSON, PER DAY.
6. Consumer Goods. The best metric I could find for this is using money. A Professor at Syracuse University calculates that as an average, every consumer dollar we spend puts .5 lbs of carbon into the atmosphere. This isn’t perfect, of course, but it averages out pretty well.
7. Food. This was by far the hardest thing to come up with a simple metric for. Using food miles, or price gives what I believe is a radically inaccurate way of thinking about this. So here’s the best I can do. Food is divided into 3 categories: 70% local food, 20% dry bulk, and 5% wet goods.

There is oh so much more detail in the rules, and the Yahoo! group includes a spreadsheet set up to track reductions. I’ve been thinking that a chart of 7 thermometers would be a good way to track my sinking usage from my place somewhere below the American average down to my fair share. A compelling scoreboard might encourage my children to participate through their own motivation more than my nudging.

Nearly irrelevant final note: When I typed in the link for the Earth Day footprint calculator above, I typed “Death Day.” I type fast, and I sometimes find it interesting to see what comes out my fingers before my brain engages. This type, I stopped short. Is that how I see it? Somewhere inside, I must see it that way.

No, I’m not trying to be shocking. I just caught a little news story last week noting that a monkey in a Denver zoo died of bubonic plague.

Bubonic plague. Would that be the black death? Hmm. Not sure. Jury is out on that one. Jury is in, though, on “bleeding into the skin and other organs, which creates black patches on the skin.”

What is the appropriate response here?

1. Holy shit! or
2. figures.

It turns out not to be as rare as I had imagined (or hoped).

How to prepare? I don’t know. Don’t eat southwestern squirrels, don’t pet mice, don’t get fleas, and don’t play in infectious disease labs. That’s what I come up with so far.

There are times when “positive feedback” is a bad thing. This is one of them. The is the scariest freaking headline I’ve read in a long time:

To follow yesterday’s idea of Homeland Security through eating local, the US Department of Agriculture is playing a little 1984 Big Brother doublespeak mind game with “hunger” by renaming it “very low food security.” Twelve percent of Americans (35 million people) suffer from this condition. TWELVE PERCENT. They way the Department of Agriculture redefines the issue, “very low food security” is a result of lack of money to buy food. These Americans just have “multiple indications of disrupted eating patterns and reduced food intake.” “Hunger,” on the other hand, is a more serious condition “beyond the usual uneasiness.” Usual? Usual to those writing the report? Usual as in, they’re used to it so don’t worry?

The annual USDA report used to be released in October. One presidential candidate from Texas in 1999 said he believed the report was fabricated and aimed at his candidacy. This year the report was released mid-November, just before Thanksgiving–and a week after mid-term elections.

I wonder how much money was spent as the Committee on National Statistic of the National Academies to “to ensure that the measurement methods USDA uses to assess households’ access — or lack of access — to adequate food and the language used to describe those conditions are conceptually and operationally sound.” Not everyone is happy about the latest addition to US doublespeak.

So, if you hear the words “food security,” it might not mean what you think it does.