Chicago’s Greenest Citizen

Recently, the Chicago Tribune endeavored on a city-wide search to identify its "greenest" citizen, and in Ken Dunn, founder of Chicago's Resource Center and resident of Hyde Park, they've found their winner: Dunn, 65, of Hyde Park, is so green that he beat out 11 other finalists, identified with the help of local sustainability groups, to be named the greenest person in Chicago by the Tribune. "Much of our country had a very frugal attitude in the late '40s, when I was first aware of household practices, and I've been trying to stay true to that," Dunn says. "And I think that's important for everybody when they think of a sustainable lifestyle: Think of it as a return to the more community-oriented, richer life of prior ages." Dunn produces only 3,800 pounds of carbon dioxide a year, as compared with the 44,000 pounds produced by the average American. He was one of two dozen contestants we found with the aid of organizations including the Center for Neighborhood Technology, the Chicago Recycling Coalition and the Natural Resources Defense Council. Contestants were judged on the basis of personal, not workplace, greenhouse gas emissions… Dunn is already living at roughly the level of carbon emissions that scientists at the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change say the average human must achieve by 2100 if we are to avoid dangerous effects of global warming. So what does Dunn's daily life look like? According to the article he rides his bike everywhere he goes, air-dries his laundry, eats food grown in his backyard, and heats his home with a wood-burning stove. He also eats food that he finds discarded by local restaurants and grocery stores. Read the article to learn more about Ken Dunn and the runners-up. What's your carbon footprint?