According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, my snowblower expels a pound of carbon monoxide for every hour that it runs. That’s the equivalent of CO expelled while driving in an average car for 70 miles.

My carbon footprint calculator that I wrote about a few days ago didn’t ask me about snowblowers, but I thought about this problem today as the snow began to fall. Having just given in last year to the idea of owning a snowblower, I’m not ready to give it up. It’s a lifesaver, at times.

But, how does using it fit into my goal of decreasing my own carbon footprint?

A calorie calculator at www.healthstatus.com tells me that shoveling snow for 90 minutes, which is about how long it takes me to shovel what I can clear with the snowblower in an hour, will burn 662 calories. That’s a decent workout, and certainly an incentive to leave the snowblower behind as often as I can.

Today’s snow was initially light and fluffy, and shoveling the first time around was easy–even pleasant. By later in the day, it had become heavy and wet. Shoveling it again would have been a long, hard, back-straining couple of hours. I was grateful for my snowblower’s help.

Reserving the snowblower for storms that are just too hard to manage on my own with a shovel might be an appropriate compromise. It could be nice to take a break from its stinky fumes for the lighter, fluffier snows, and get some exercise benefit as well. After all, it will always be parked right there if I need it.

As for the carbon footprint challenge: if I can at least stay neutral, by doing something to cancel out the emissions of using the snowblower once, I could justify using it.

An obvious option would be to cancel a couple of car trips each time I use it. Or, I could dry my laundry that week on the wooden drying rack, saving 4.4 pounds of CO2 per load. I don’t understand how much CO2 savings might offset one pound of CO but, for now, I’m comfortable with a very squishy guess.

Let’s hope the next storm brings some dry, fluffy snow. I’m looking forward to fresh air and a little exercise that doesn’t leave me heading off to physical therapy.