If there was a model of what not to do on the weekend of Earth Day, I wrote the book this week.

Friday, I raced down the 400, QEW and I290 to drop my wife at the Buffalo Niagara International Airport so that we could save $199 on my wife's jet trip to Dallas for a conference that might just as easily have been delivered on satellite television.

I was in enough of a rush to continue to stomp my carbon footprint when I utilized two drive-through stops to refuel with coffee in cups that are probably on their way to a hole in the ground in Michigan.

At the border crossings, I idled and inched my car in the lineup, unwilling to allow other cars to butt in if I left them an opening.

At home Saturday, I transported a teenager to the home of a friend in Stayner rather than make him bike up that hill from Cashtown Corners on such a hot day.

Sunday, I drove the family to breakfast when it wouldn't have taken a whole lot more organization to have walked, And then I drove the family to church in a neighbouring town because it would have taken a whole lot of organization, not to mention a vast improvement in personal fitness, to pull that one off by bicycle.

Tuesday, I tore apart the house looking for the lids for the little plastic containers to pack that litterless lunch for my daughter. The phantom lids, along with phantom socks in the laundry room, have surely caused more global degradation than the resealable sandwich bags that are my default packaging of choice much of the time.

Litterless lunch is pretty much a misnomer since I found myself taking food out its packaging to put in reusable containers.

Now, the light at the end of the tunnel here is that I actually noticed these things and felt guilt. Not all of my weekends are like that one, but many of them are almost as bad.

When I use a drive-through because my agenda is more important than saving the planet I've actually gotten to the point where I check over my shoulder to see if anyone that I know will see me and single me out. It's like the little scan of the horizon one does before taking the last cookie from the plate.

Sometimes when there's no risk that anyone can butt into the drive-through line in front of me, I will turn off the engine while the trainee learns how to place the French fries in the unnecessary bag and add the totally unnecessary straw.

I'm not a complete reprobate with respect to the environment, but a weekend like I just had is a motivator to try to break out of the patterns of habit and convenience so that my grandchildren can someday be here looking for plastic lids and stray socks, too.

It's not all bad news.

I have relearned the childhood habit of turning off a light as I leave the room.

Most of my lighting is now the high-efficiency type.

Hot water washes are a thing of the past and the clothesline gets used about eight months of the year.

I've always had a self-righteous laissez faire approach to my lawn as long as I've had a lawn so there's no need to change my habits with harmful chemicals there. That has been a low priority for me; either that or I'm just lazy.

But, as you've seen in this confessional, I've still got a long way to go.

That I notice and that I feel regret shows just how far the environmental movement has come. And there's always that hope that I can stop being a follower and learn to be a leader.

Larry Culham is managing editor of The Sun. Your comments and feedback are welcome at sunnews@simcoe.com.