My Footprint

For the past three months now, The Sun magazine has sent me postcards and letters and extra wrappings on my magazine warning me that my subscription is about to run out.

Today it did. I received my copy in this afternoon's mail along with 3 catalogues, 2 coupon flyers, and another letter from The Sun magazine telling me this is it.

I'm torn. I really love the magazine -- the beautiful photography, the thoughtful writing, the ad-free pages -- but I'm also trying to "simplify", which may see odd as we just finished remodeling our house, adding 950 square feet to our existing 640 square feet.

I'm torn because I'm trying to reduce my "ecological footprint" or the impact I have on the environment. This was of great consideration when we remodeled. "Green" homes, or homes that are environmentally friendly get ratings. 5 stars is the highest rating a green home can get. We have 4. We didn't have the money for a gray-water system or solar panels, but everything else meets the environmentally friendly code.

While our house is bigger, it's by no means extravagant. In fact, the cover of a magazine I saw in the grocery store exclaimed, "How to live in small spaces: 1700 square feet or less." Wow, we lived in 640 square feet for 4 years and in an attempt to "save" the house (built in the 1900s) we remodeled and now live in 1590 square feet. The new house just built on the corner last year boasts a whopping 3500 square feet and the house up the street called the "ghetto mansion" by the locals is 6000 square feet. What would one do with all of that space? Fill it up with magazines?

We also own only one car. Granted, it's a SUV, but we drive it minimally and both of us either ride our bikes to work or I generally walk to work while Ann carpools with a teacher-friend.

We keep our heat at 65 degrees and I challenged myself this year to not turn it on until October 1. We made it until today (October 3) because it is colder than 65 degrees outside and the house has a chill. Still, 65 degrees is pretty good and since we're gone most of the day, it only comes on for a few hours in the evening.

We compost our food scraps, we recycle religiously, and all and all, we really don't overconsume with purchases (though we have had to buy more furniture for our now larger house).

We buy organic with fresh vegetables and fruit delievered to our door every other week and a trip to the local farmer's market when we need extras. And yes, we ride our bikes to market.

Truly, we live mindfully, but the decision to re-up my subscription to The Sun was a tough one for me. Yes, I like the magazine, but it feels like an indulgence. I could just get on my bike and pedal to the library four blocks away (or walk, for that matter) and read the monthly magazine there.

While the magazine boasts of no ads, every month they sent me a card in the mail urging me to get my friends to subscribe or offering me a chance to resubscribe early at a slightly reduced rate.

That's a lot of paper. That's a lot of energy.

My mother has a list at home of all the catalogues she receives. Diligently, and only as my mother could, she has called the various businesses who send her these catalogues and asked the companies to stop sending them. By each catalogue name on the list is the phone number of their customer service office and little check marks tallying the number of times she's had to call them.

Some checks go on for quite awhile.

If I wanted to save paper, I could do the same...call all the companies who send me catalogues and tell them to knock it off, but when I look at my mother's efforts, I get discouraged. I don't have that kind of time to call and complain. (Not that my mother does, the busy Democrat that she is!) Instead, it's easier not to resubscribe.

So, I decided last month that I would not renew my subscription and when the last one arrived today, I read the article by Bill McKibben and had to chuckle. His article, entitled "Dream A Little Dream," is about reforming our supersized society, about considering the costs to our planet of overconsumption.

He writes: "The Achilles' heel of consumer society is that it hasn't made us as happy as it promised it would. Although Americans have tripled their prosperity since the mid-1950s, the percentage who say they're 'very satisfied' with their lives has declined...We've pursued the American Dream to no real apparent end."

He goes on to talk about global warming and the shift away from farming to technology and gluttonous consumption.

I love reading this. I love hearing someone say what needs to be said, but when I hold the recycled paper of the magazine in my hands, I feel that thin line between hypocrisy and conviction and cringe a bit.

Recycled paper is better than non-recycled, but still, the energy it takes to recycle it, the energy it takes to send out little postcards every month or a letter reminding me that my subscription is almost gone is immense.

Yet, here is my dilemma: If I do not subscribe to the magazine, they will lose money. If they lose money, the may not be able to publish their magazine. While the loss of Newsweek or Time or those ghastly rags at the checkout stand would be an actual blessing, the loss of the information published in The Sun would be devastating...or the loss of Mother Jones or even the now trendy and woo-woo-fied Utne Reader.

Still, it feels dishonest to me to be reading an article about reducing my consumption in a magazine I pay to consume...in a magazine that consumes resources...in a magazine that uses energy to consume resources.

But then I think about how many other people subscribe to The Sun and Mother Jones and The Atlantic Monthly, and all those other people who subscribe to Newsweek and Time, or worse, People. Will my cancelling a subscription to one magazine make a difference?

Now you see the quandary. How does one live simply in such a complex puzzle of American society?

I guess it's by one magazine at a time.