In a recent post about the Energy Smackdown, I conveyed some stats on typical carbon footprints, both domestically and internationally, as well as where Smackdown participants had begun and what they had accomplished.

This story from the Vail Daily News (which I saw through Climate Ark) reports on a presentation Sunday by inventor Saul Griffith, a 2007 MacArthur Grant winner, in which he offers a different measurement toward the same result: watts.

The average American consumes about 10,400 watts of power annually through their lifestyles, Griffith said. Globally, the average is 2,200 watts. (China and India are well below that average, he said.)
Griffith was appalled to learn his power consumption topped 17,000 watts annually, qualifying him as a “global fuck-up,” he said. He and his colleagues have determined that the average American need to reduce that annual power diet to about 2,291 watts — an amount selected as part of a much broader, complex formula tied to the production of a more tolerable level of greenhouse gases.

Though the measure is different, the vast gulf between where Americans are and where we need to be is the same, of course. So are Griffith's Big 3 steps to drastically reduce: Less air travel, less meat in the diet, and generally consuming less stuff. "Griffith said he eliminated meat six days per week, relying more on organic, locally-grown produce. ... and he's reducing purchases of the gadgets, clothes, and luxury items usually taken for granted. 'You either buy one-tenth as much stuff or you make your stuff last 10 times as long,' Griffith said."

Griffith and colleagues have created a website,
wattzon.com, to assist those who want to adopt his measure.