Young love, the environment, independent cinema and carbon emissions!

When we began Footprints, my teenage daughter was probably the most excited in the house. She participated avidly in the discussions and threw in many great ideas. Teenage Daughter is a passionate greenie and leftie. Or is she???

Teenage Daughter likes to spend every Saturday with her boyfriend. A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned that I had to go into the city for a few hours so she could spend that time with him. I'd drop her on the way and pick her up on the way home. She was upset that it couldn't be longer. I explained that, with our change in lifestyle, it didn't make sense to run the car unnecessarily. Before I knew it, The Boyfriend's mother, had offered to pick up Teenage Daughter. It was a sweet gesture and I relented. Just because it wasn't my car, however, doesn't mean there was less impact on the environment. I mentioned to Teenage Daughter that perhaps she was less interested in the environment than she thought. She insisted that she cared very much for the environment and the planet - just not when it interfered with her plans!!! And need I even write about how much more often the cordless phone and her mobile phone are being charged these days after long romantic phone call? Yes, we were all that way once, I guess ...

While I'm on the subject of carbon emissions, I had an interesting decision to make yesterday. Teenage Daughter and I went to see Jane Eyre. I could have gotten us very cheap tickets at an independent cinema in the city - about 20km's from home. I opted, however, to pay more and go locally to a big national multiplex cinema in order to use less petrol. It was difficult because I really would have prefered to have used the independent cinema (and gotten cheaper tickets). However, the environmental Footprint is a big part of what this is all about while the use of independent providers is more of a bugbear.

Each day presents me with a new challenge, dilemma or question. I find it much less straight forward than I thought I would and that holds a charm I wasn't expecting. :)