It’s the time of year when a retired person, such as myself, gets out the juggling equipment and decides who will be paid first – the tax man, the oil man, the dentist or the eye doctor. Having to decide between heat, fixing a wisdom tooth or having cataract surgery is only aggravated by my newest concern. I may be dealing Mother Earth an unrecoverable blow by my carbon footprint. Or ecological footprint. Or both.

A carbon footprint is a measure of the impact human activities have on the environment in terms of the amount of greenhouse gases produced, and is measured in units of carbon dioxide.

Ecological footprint analysis compares human demand on nature against the biosphere’s ability to regenerate resources and provide services.

Back in the days of my youth, I subscribed to Mother Earth News and gobbled up handfuls of roots, seaweed and other “natural” foods. I wasn’t exactly a tree hugger, but did champion the efforts which became, in 1970, Earth Day. Today, this extremely worthwhile venture is almost a national holiday with front pages devoted to photo shoots of once-a-year do gooders cleaning up beaches and greenspeak all over the television news. But it did have an effect on the awareness of the American public and resulted in some good things like the Clean Water Act, the EPA and many other worthwhile programs. Building green is now a buzz-word.

Concern for the planet has now prompted measuring one’s individual impact and I can tell you, I took an Ecological Footprint quiz on the Internet which measures a person’s effect on the earth. The results filled me with dismay. Even though I’m such a scrooge when it comes to waste, and never drive farther than the town boundaries, I have had a drastic impact! I’m thinking of becoming a 100 percent hermit!

How can I even worry about staying warm and buying that fossil fuel when it will result in a whole bunch of bad footprints! Burning wood used to be the norm for folks around here but that dratted smoke caused a whole lot of issues. Of course, wood is a renewable resource. But most of us have a love affair with the thermostat and the A/C.

If the publicity surrounding the various impacts we humans have on the earth convinces humanity that there are better ways to live, I’m all for it. Anyone who knows me has heard me condemn the waste we produce. I have whole lectures about using left-over food, second-hand clothes and recycling things which probably should be trash.

I understand that global warming is the result of our footprints and how the planet has been misused. I haven’t yet figured out yet why Maine has seen shorter and shorter summers, but I bet it’s tied in somehow. Probably the shortage of lobsters works in there, too.

It’s almost too much for my old brain to ponder. Truly, these days of autumn should be filled with views of golden leaved birches, bright piles of pumpkins, the sound of crunching leaves, and the wonderful woodsy smell of fall days.

I think I’ll let the warm fall sunshine in, work on finishing my book about Windham history, and leave the future (and all those footprints) for the scientists to sort out. Rest assured, theories abound.

See you next week.