I love No Impact Man. He's a REAL open-minded liberal. As in, he works to engage people from all parts of the spectrum to support his cause.
More importantly, he thinks in a manner that feels, to me, very Catholic (although I doubt he is even a Christian). He believes strongly in stewardship of environmental resources, in loving our neighbors as ourselves, in forgiveness, and in striving for a greater good. And he believes in working together to achieve this with those who may believe differently in other areas, for the greater good.
He writes this excellent post on what he calls "environmental effectiveness". Basically, this is the idea that we want to get the most good for the least resources. Well-used resources which make people happy and fill their lives with opportunity are "environmentally effective". The beauty of this concept is that it captures many of the issues with environmentalism in a way that "sustainability" does not. It emphasizes the importance of human quality of life in a way that the environmental movement tends to gloss over. How many times have we heard the banal, despairing statement that the Earth would be better off without humanity? And how many times have we felt horror that someone should have such disregard for the virtues of their own species, horror that someone should be so willing to disregard OUR personal value, in favor of animals and pristine vistas? More specifically, in favor of animals unloved by humans and vistas unseen by humans? Humanity does believe, in general, that we are better and different than animals. Environmentalism needs to (and ought to) work with that belief.
Here is the link: http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/008905.html
Showing posts with label green. Show all posts
Showing posts with label green. Show all posts
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Savin' gas
Like everyone else, we're trying to cut back on gas. Our plan is pretty simple:
- Create a budget, in terms of total miles per week. We're aiming to stay under 100 miles per week (they will 'rollover', so we can save miles for a big trip to visit family). For us, that's around 5 gallons of gas per week, or $18.95 per week in last Sunday's gas prices.
- Remove the back seat. We're getting an extra mile per gallon that way. 18.4 to 19.3 mpg or so.
- Use cruise control when possible. We get about 1/3 extra mpg - so up to 19.6 mpg (highway). This is a minivan, btw.
Longer term, we'll probably try and cut back even more. However, we do need to take the occasional trip to pay homage to the relatives who have helped us so much during the past couple of years (and even before then).
Other ideas that may help us eventually lower our gas budget:
- Getting things delivered. Good ol' CSA's can handle most of our groceries, for example - thanks to the friend who reminded me about the Klesicks'! Who are delivering our produce today *squee*!
- Running all of our errands on one day. We need to get a bit more organized to pull this off well. Also, Sunday is a natural day for this since we need to drive to church anyways - but do we really want to be working on Sundays? I guess it depends on the nature of the errands. A library trip on Sundays would be great!
- When the overpass is completed, we will be walking distance from Silver Lake Park (1 mile). And yes, we know how long 1 mile is when walking with twins - that's how far it was to the affordable grocery store when we didn't have a car.
- Using the electric scooter for errands. Because carrying things in the bottom of a double stroller just isn't that much fun.
We're in an unusual place in that we are far less dependent on our car to begin with than the average family of four. So we don't feel the pinch of rising gas prices the way other people do - we just change the flow of our lives a little and move away from gas. We will probably lose some of that flexibility as our children get older (and, dare I hope, more numerous?), so I'm going to enjoy it while we have it!
- Create a budget, in terms of total miles per week. We're aiming to stay under 100 miles per week (they will 'rollover', so we can save miles for a big trip to visit family). For us, that's around 5 gallons of gas per week, or $18.95 per week in last Sunday's gas prices.
- Remove the back seat. We're getting an extra mile per gallon that way. 18.4 to 19.3 mpg or so.
- Use cruise control when possible. We get about 1/3 extra mpg - so up to 19.6 mpg (highway). This is a minivan, btw.
Longer term, we'll probably try and cut back even more. However, we do need to take the occasional trip to pay homage to the relatives who have helped us so much during the past couple of years (and even before then).
Other ideas that may help us eventually lower our gas budget:
- Getting things delivered. Good ol' CSA's can handle most of our groceries, for example - thanks to the friend who reminded me about the Klesicks'! Who are delivering our produce today *squee*!
- Running all of our errands on one day. We need to get a bit more organized to pull this off well. Also, Sunday is a natural day for this since we need to drive to church anyways - but do we really want to be working on Sundays? I guess it depends on the nature of the errands. A library trip on Sundays would be great!
- When the overpass is completed, we will be walking distance from Silver Lake Park (1 mile). And yes, we know how long 1 mile is when walking with twins - that's how far it was to the affordable grocery store when we didn't have a car.
- Using the electric scooter for errands. Because carrying things in the bottom of a double stroller just isn't that much fun.
We're in an unusual place in that we are far less dependent on our car to begin with than the average family of four. So we don't feel the pinch of rising gas prices the way other people do - we just change the flow of our lives a little and move away from gas. We will probably lose some of that flexibility as our children get older (and, dare I hope, more numerous?), so I'm going to enjoy it while we have it!
Monday, April 28, 2008
There must be 50 ways to help the planet
I found a link to a nice list of 50 Ways to Help the Planet while dinking around on the web, and thought it might be fun to go through them and see how many I'm doing and make to-do's (for months out - too busy right now) to change some of my habits. However, 50 is a bit much for one post, so I'm going to do 10 at a time until I get bored.
Here are today's 10:
1. CHANGE YOUR LIGHT
This one is about switching to CFC's instead of incandescent lighting. We've done this in the past, although since we've moved I don't think we've switched out all of our bulbs. We do have CFC's on hand to replace lights as they burn out. I actually already have a to-do to look into LED lights - supposedly longer-lasting, lower-energy than even CFC's, and without that stressful hint of mercury. Also more expensive up-frount, however. Since we have CFC's on hand an a related to-do, I'm marking this "In Progress".
2. TURN OFF COMPUTERS AT NIGHT
We could do better about this one. We often leave the laptop, as well as other electronics, on 24/7 when they aren't needed. I just created a to-do for this.
3. DON’T RINSE
This falls into my husband's area, as the dishes are solidly his responsibility. However, I created a to-do to ask him if he is rinsing, and recommend that he try seeing if we really need to with our new (to us) fancy dishwasher that came with our house. This saves time and money and is green - so definitely a habit worth changing, if our dishwasher can handle it (our old one couldn't).
4. DO NOT PRE-HEAT THE OVEN
They do mention the exception for baking. I generally already do this when I'm the one cooking. This is my husband's area more than mine, so I'll bring it up and let him decide - to-do created. We don't oven-cook that much, so it's not really a big deal for us anyways.
5. RECYCLE GLASS
We do this. Recycling is so ubiquitous here that I can't imagine anyone not doing this - especially when you don't even need to sort your glass from the rest of your recyclables in this area!
6. DIAPER WITH A CONSCIENCE
Use cloth or environmentally-concious disposables for this one. We used cloth for two months, but couldn't afford the nice diapers that change quickly. Taking two to four minutes longer for a diaper change is a big deal with twinfants, since one baby is usually crying the entire time that you are changing the other. We used cheap generic disposables for a while, but once we were able to afford Seventh Generation we gave them a try and haven't gone back - great quality! For our next child, I want to give Fuzzy Bunz a try - they look quick and easy. But we're so close to potty-training now that we can't really justify the investment until we know we'll have another baby to use it with.
7. HANG DRY
Also Bjorn's area. I don't think he'll be willing to do this, especially since we live in such a damp, wet part of the country (greater-Seattle area). I think I'll put this down as something to consider for summer, 2009. Honestly, I'd really like to talk to people who actually do this in the local area before I try it - especially since it means I need to take on the laundry.
8. GO VEGETARIAN ONCE A WEEK
We've already reduced out meat consumption some - enough to fulfill this item on the list - but I'd like to get to just preparing a meal with meat once a week (leftovers will probably last multiple meals). So I finally got around to creating a to-do for that. We also have a to-do in similar vein about looking into buying local, grass-fed beef from a CSA to reduce impact.
9. WASH IN COLD OR WARM
This is about not using the hot/hot for clothing. We already do this, using hot/hot about once a month for whites (if anyone remembers to wash them on the special setting), and otherwise wash using cold / cold or, for the very messy, warm / cold.
10. USE ONE LESS PAPER NAPKIN
This inspires three or four to-do's. First, get cloth napkins at home. Second, quit using paper towels (may need more cloth towels, or just easier access to the cloth diapers we use). Third, store a kit of re-usable napkins and silverware in the car for fast-food dining.
So there are 10 items analyzed for today. I may or may not go through another 10 later. I came up with seven new to-do items for our list out of these ten green ideas. Hopefully we can gradually make these small changes to live a greener (cheaper!) lifestyle - like good Christian stewards should!
Here are today's 10:
1. CHANGE YOUR LIGHT
This one is about switching to CFC's instead of incandescent lighting. We've done this in the past, although since we've moved I don't think we've switched out all of our bulbs. We do have CFC's on hand to replace lights as they burn out. I actually already have a to-do to look into LED lights - supposedly longer-lasting, lower-energy than even CFC's, and without that stressful hint of mercury. Also more expensive up-frount, however. Since we have CFC's on hand an a related to-do, I'm marking this "In Progress".
2. TURN OFF COMPUTERS AT NIGHT
We could do better about this one. We often leave the laptop, as well as other electronics, on 24/7 when they aren't needed. I just created a to-do for this.
3. DON’T RINSE
This falls into my husband's area, as the dishes are solidly his responsibility. However, I created a to-do to ask him if he is rinsing, and recommend that he try seeing if we really need to with our new (to us) fancy dishwasher that came with our house. This saves time and money and is green - so definitely a habit worth changing, if our dishwasher can handle it (our old one couldn't).
4. DO NOT PRE-HEAT THE OVEN
They do mention the exception for baking. I generally already do this when I'm the one cooking. This is my husband's area more than mine, so I'll bring it up and let him decide - to-do created. We don't oven-cook that much, so it's not really a big deal for us anyways.
5. RECYCLE GLASS
We do this. Recycling is so ubiquitous here that I can't imagine anyone not doing this - especially when you don't even need to sort your glass from the rest of your recyclables in this area!
6. DIAPER WITH A CONSCIENCE
Use cloth or environmentally-concious disposables for this one. We used cloth for two months, but couldn't afford the nice diapers that change quickly. Taking two to four minutes longer for a diaper change is a big deal with twinfants, since one baby is usually crying the entire time that you are changing the other. We used cheap generic disposables for a while, but once we were able to afford Seventh Generation we gave them a try and haven't gone back - great quality! For our next child, I want to give Fuzzy Bunz a try - they look quick and easy. But we're so close to potty-training now that we can't really justify the investment until we know we'll have another baby to use it with.
7. HANG DRY
Also Bjorn's area. I don't think he'll be willing to do this, especially since we live in such a damp, wet part of the country (greater-Seattle area). I think I'll put this down as something to consider for summer, 2009. Honestly, I'd really like to talk to people who actually do this in the local area before I try it - especially since it means I need to take on the laundry.
8. GO VEGETARIAN ONCE A WEEK
We've already reduced out meat consumption some - enough to fulfill this item on the list - but I'd like to get to just preparing a meal with meat once a week (leftovers will probably last multiple meals). So I finally got around to creating a to-do for that. We also have a to-do in similar vein about looking into buying local, grass-fed beef from a CSA to reduce impact.
9. WASH IN COLD OR WARM
This is about not using the hot/hot for clothing. We already do this, using hot/hot about once a month for whites (if anyone remembers to wash them on the special setting), and otherwise wash using cold / cold or, for the very messy, warm / cold.
10. USE ONE LESS PAPER NAPKIN
This inspires three or four to-do's. First, get cloth napkins at home. Second, quit using paper towels (may need more cloth towels, or just easier access to the cloth diapers we use). Third, store a kit of re-usable napkins and silverware in the car for fast-food dining.
So there are 10 items analyzed for today. I may or may not go through another 10 later. I came up with seven new to-do items for our list out of these ten green ideas. Hopefully we can gradually make these small changes to live a greener (cheaper!) lifestyle - like good Christian stewards should!
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