April 23, 2007

Happy Belated Earth Day

Well another Earth Day has come and gone and I've become more and more Californian as time has gone on. I didn't do anything big in the past year, but I did reinforce more environmentally friendly habits, and upon reflection I think I did some good. First here are my Earth Day posts from 2004, 2005, and 2006 so you can gain some perspective on my environmentalist evolution. When I compare my progress over the last year to previous years I think I made more of an impact by what I did NOT do as opposed to what I did do. Some examples of this are:

1. We (Timber and I) did NOT buy a McMansion and hence saved quite a bit of energy and carbon emissions. We still have our condo (which is vigorously guarded by Wookie). Our condo has two shared walls (energy savings) and windows only on one side (more energy savings). We also put in a smart thermostat (more energy savings) as well as a ceiling fan (yet more energy savings). We use the more energy efficient bulbs and do a great job of turning things off when they aren't being used. We rarely have to run our heater or air conditioner. Our condo association has a lot of extra money and I think it would be cool if they started putting solar panels on the tops of the condos.
2. We only went snowboarding once this season. This one was not by choice, but I'll count it anyway. We saved quite a bit of gas and emissions by not going to Tahoe much this winter.

Now for the things that we did do:

1. Drove my truck even less than last year. Since this was a mild winter I've been able to leave my truck at home more often and instead drive the Vespa to work and elsewhere. I've gone 3 to 4 weeks at times without having to fill up my truck. The Vespa is still running great, it gets great mileage and it easy to park. I don't think it does so well on emissions, at least not as well as you would expect, but I'm still too cheap to take it to a smog check place to see what its actual emissions are.
2. Started paying more attention to locally/organically grown foods. First, I'll prefer local over organic. It would be even better if I can buy locally grown organic foods, but I'll take it as it comes. I'm still not at the point where I can justify buying the ogranically grown bananas that look the same yet cost twice as much, but I'm sure I'll get there some day.
3. I've read up more on environmental issues and what individuals can do to help lessen our impact in the past year. An interesting blog on the subject is No Impact Man. An interesting book is Worldchanging: A User's Guide for the 21st Century, make sure you check it out from the library instead of buying it. :-)

In Summary:
As always I don't think it would work to have people completely change their habits in one fail swoop. Instead I think constant change like the rising of the tide is the way to go. Try to do something each year, and try to get better and better each year. You'd be surprised at how fast you will see progress. In summary I think I'm ready to move beyond the basics (recycle, change light bulbs, turn off lights when not being used, etc...) and get more advanced. Here are some things that I'll try to do in the next year:
1. Grow more of my own food (easy to do since I grow none of it now).
2. Always bring my own bags to the grocery store. If I don't then I'll have to put 10 cents per bag into a fund and donate it to the Democrats. OK, just kidding about donating to the Democrats, I'd NEVER do that. Maybe I'll donate it to the Sierra Club or something.
3. Buy more local/organic foods.
4. Eat less meat.
5. Buy things used whenever possible.
6. Try to find cleaner energy to buy (not sure if this is possible where I live).

Posted by troutm8 at April 23, 2007 04:44 PM