We hear a lot about what environmentally friendly actions have been, will be, or could be better for the environment. Whether the thing that is "better" is something individual consumers can do, something companies have done or plan to do, or something a government somewhere is considering doing, we are met constantly with information from environmental activists, policymakers and corporate public relations officers telling us what we should do or support in order to mitigate global warming. We are hammered with statistics. We are courted by pretty pictures of trees and grass. We are asked to make an informed decision. But are we informed? Not adequately.

Nor do I think we're respected. I couldn't tell you whether my computer uses more energy than my desk lamp or vice versa, but this doesn't mean I wouldn't like to know. I bet some other people would like to know this too. And not just which one uses more, but how much more. We're simple folk, but we ain't stupid.

Somewhere in the world of science and technology, somebody is bound to be measuring the potential greenhouse gas emissions of one action versus another, one technology versus another, one policy versus another, and so on. I'm sure measurements like this are made routinely. But so very little of this comparative work is made known to consumers! Sure, we hear sometimes how what some company has done is the equivalent of taking a certain number of cars off the road, but in isolation, it's hard to say whether the numbers being given us are at all impressive. Phrased the right way, statistics can make a token effort seem like a mammoth contribution. So how can one not be a skeptic?

What I propose is a way to help people like me get their head around global warming, and what they can do. Let's have, for example, a website. The website would be called something like howmuchbetter.org and would use a standard measure of greenhouse gas emissions to inform people about constructive and destructive decisions made by themselves and/or others. It would be quantitative. No greenwashing, just how-much-are-you-emitting-versus-how-much-could-you-be-emitting. Actually, not just how much the consumer himself emits, because you'd have to count the energy spent in the production and distribution prior to consumption, if applicable. People could compare the benefits of buying fair trade bananas to the benefits of switching an incandescent bulb to a CFL, directly. In greenhouse-gas terms. They could compare Wal-mart's purchases of organic cotton to Arnold Schwarzenegger's emissions laws in California. And they could compare economic costs and opportunities alongside greenhouse emissions. Yes, there would be space to mention other environmental, social and individual upsides and downsides. But the quantified fields would be a) greenhouse gas emissions, and b) dollars and cents. It could be open-sourced, potentially, if you had enough informed people around to add their commentary.

There are so many "how to green your life" columns out there, with tips spewing out all ends, some of them very practical and with enormous potential, some of them needless, too expensive, or even counterproductive! How many people, when they bought that hybrid car, wondered to themselves whether the energy spent in producing the car was more than what they were about to save, over the alternate option of buying a car used? Or rather, how many years they would have to drive the hybrid car for that amount to equal out? We need a solid measure whereby we can judge things like this, soberly and without a sales pitch.

I hope, if upon reading this, somebody knows of a place I can find this sort of information, that they will tell me where it is. Otherwise, I really feel a social-entrepreneurial itch coming on, and am about to go info-hunting.