"When there was only one set of footprints, that's when I was walking and you were driving your SUV."

Oh, those halcyon days of yesteryear when you could knee-steer your Hummer to the mailbox 17 feet from your driveway while wrestling a Carl’s Jr. CarniSlab© hamburger into your gnashing maw without seizing up in a spasm of eco-guilt. Remember? A time of freedom and innocence and whatever the noun form of “carefree” is? I totally missed the ’60s, but I imagine it must have felt something like that.

Kidding. I’m all about this heightened collective awareness of our environmental impact on the globe, though I’ll confess to visibly squirming at the brand of eco-consciousness that just sort of hammer-smacks you on the head with some dismal, inexorable, fast-worsening factoid that you have no control over or ostensible connection to. You know, like the standard closer to, oh, just about any nature documentary these days, those last 10 minutes when, after a good chunk of an hour devoted to, say, the delightful frolics of Brazil’s white-eared marmosets, it’s revealed that holy shit they’re keeling over in droves! — keeling cutely, but keeling nonetheless — because of torrents of screaming acid rain caused by voluminous auto traffic caused by the new roads caused by the evil multinational paper company that underwrote a new Sao Paulo freeway system and bought every Brazilian person over age 12 a new Mustang as a good will bribe in order to get government approval for a new mondo regional paper mill and worldwide distribution port.

It’s, like, thanks a lot, Animal Planet. Thanks for reminding me I can’t rescue the world from imminent enviro-cataclysm by waving a Whole Foods canvas shopping bag at it.

It’s right about then I puss out and click to “Daisy of Love.” I’m not proud of this fact. But it’s as though the evolving realization that we’re all interconnected in some magical global circle-of-life drum-thrumming butterfly eco-dance has caused more paralysis and apathy rather than a commitment to meaningful action. What happened to that simpler time, when I could convince myself I was keeping the flies out of some bulb-bellied kid’s starving face by paying him the price of a cup of a coffee a day?

Which is a long way of saying that the good kind of global eco-consciousness gives you information that’s actually useful, information that’s (the buzzword actually applies here) empowering, not disabling and disaffecting, information that’s ideally attuned to your lifestyle and locale. And if there’s such a thing as that for Southern Nevada — or anybody in the rapidly droughtifying Southwest — it might be this Water Footprint Network, a concept dreamed up by a Dutch scientist in 2002 that now seems to be getting some legs. The idea is simple. It’s an approach to measuring water consumption not merely in terms of direct use — yer standard toilet-flushings, lawn-sprinklings, bubble-bathings, tooth-brushings — but also indirect use.

That is, the water footprint concept takes into account all the water that’s been poured into your consumptive lifestyle — the water that went into making your Starbucks, the water that went into making your Quarter Pounder, the water that went into making your clothes, your house, your car. Creator Arjen Y. Hoekstra also has in place a system for considering just where that water comes from, and how this fits into a broader view of water as a global commodity that’s virtually imported and exported in the goods passing hands around the world:

“Water problems are often closely tied to the structure of the global economy. Many countries have significantly externalised their water footprint, importing water-intensive goods from elsewhere. This puts pressure on the water resources in the exporting regions, where too often mechanisms for wise water governance and conservation are lacking. Not only governments, but also consumers, businesses and civil society communities can play a role in achieving a better management of water resources.”

It’s entirely possible to shift a whole society’s energy production base from oil to solar, wind and geothermal. In a hundred years, your car might run on solar energy generated by a sunlight-drinking, hyper-efficient nano-coat painted on at the factory and gas stations will be the stuff of quaint jokes. However, you’ll still be drinking water. Water is the oil we can’t wean ourselves from, and if conservation efforts — heck, if mere awareness — benefit from better information, the Water Footprint Network should be a crucial component of it.

Also, if you’ve got a high threshold for crushing eco-guilt, you can calculate your own personal water footprint here. The upshot? You can actually do something about reducing it. That’s the nice thing: This ain’t marmosets, people.