The Progressives' Handbook

Do you think you're environmentally friendly? Well, prepare to be humbled if not downright embarrassed. The Ecological Footprint quiz (available for free at www.myfootprint.org) takes less than two minutes to fill out yet gives a concrete assessment of your impact on environmental sustainability. Here are examples of the 15 multiple-choice questions:

• How much of the food that you eat is processed, packaged and not locally grown (from more than 200 miles away)?

• On average, how far do you travel on public transportation each week (bus, train, subway or ferry) ?

• Approximately how many hours do you spend flying each year?

When the author (a vegetarian, non-driver) took the test, she expected to get an environmental pat on the back, but wound up with a score that warned, "If everyone lived like you, we would need 2.6 planets." Ouch. So take the Ecological Footprint plunge if you dare, but as the site warns: "CAUTION: This quiz may surprise you, shock you, or make you think."

Another enlightening quiz can be found at Happy Planet Index, which uses an equation incorporating life satisfaction, life expectancy and ecological footprint to determine: "the average years of happy life produced by a given society, nation or group of nations, per unit of planetary resources consumed" (www.happyplanetindex.org). You can calculate your own HPI score online and see how various countries stack up as well. For the record, Vanuatu tops the HPI index, and out of the 178 countries surveyed, the US scores a crappy 150 - meanwhile, its southern neighbor, Mexico, pulls in a respectable 38.