Reducing My Carbon Footprint

I have been thinking about carbon footprinting a lot lately.  I am kind of floored, pretty shocked to discover how serious things are.  After calculating my own footprint, I was beside myself.  It's not that my footprint was that terrible - it wasn't that bad, at 6.39 metric tons per year, compared to the average US resident who has a footprint of 20.40 metric tons.  In fact, my footprint is so light that I think I surely must have fibbed somewhere during the test!  Anyway, the thing that is upsetting me so much is how far away I am from the worldwide target of 2 metric tons, and what that means on a global level.  How will we in the US ever fix things well enough?  How will we make lifestyle changes so sweeping and so thorough that it will ever get us anywhere near 2 metric tons?

And now I catch myself making different decisions.  Do I really need that light on?  Do I really need to go to the store?  I caught myself recently standing ashamed in my kitchen, holding a plastic jug of lemon-aid, thinking about the ripe lemons growing in the garden outside that could have been the source of that drink.  Sometimes at night, I walk around the apartment in the dark, trying to find everything sucking up unnecessary energy, and find myself unplugging things right and left, like the microwave, the router, etc.  After unplugging things, it seems so much quieter in my home.  It could be my imagination, but it definitely feels different, more peaceful.

What else can I do?

• Potty train my kid to get him out of diapers.  He's in toddler school for 10 hours a day, where they use a green cloth diaper service, so it's not as bad as it could be.  I didn't include my family members in my footprint, but this is something I can do, regardless. 
• Stop buying things that have packaging as much as I can.  There are ways to do this here.  For instance, there's a grocery store about 2.5 miles away which sells almost everything one needs in bulk, and I can bring in my own containers to fill.  I resolve to figure out ways to do this.
• Just stop buying things.  Seriously, how much does a person really need?  I buy things I could easily do without all the time, and that needs to change.
• Buy my clothes and whatever else I can secondhand.
• Walk more.
• Get a bike with a kid seat and use it.
• I'd love to buy a Prius when the time comes to replace my car.  I just saw a billboard the other day advertising that the Prius "minivan" has finally come on the market.  It's not in the budget right now, but it's something to consider for down the road (ha ha).