When Vicki's mom was going through some of her things she found The Green Book (be green, buy it used), and she gave it to me. She didn't know why Vicki had it, but I wound up with it. I had flipped through it some before this week, but this week I read it cover to cover. Okay, I did skip the parts about sports equipment and the articles by celebs. Seriously, did I need to know Jennifer Aniston takes only a three minute shower or that Owen Wilson made lame excuses for driving a Prius? (Skimmed those, just to make my point here.)
Anyway, I did like the overall style of the book, it's more of a reference book. The authors peppered it with little notes like, "Americans spend seven times more money per year on beauty products than the federal government spends on education." But, mostly it was a habit breaking, home changing and shopping guide. The authors call them "simple steps."
Like any book on being green, it made me think. I really don't mind that, forget what I said earlier this week.
So, I went green Aurora. Our town has signs strategically placed city wide encouraging residents to "Go Green with Green Power." I looked into it. Switching should save us money AND be better for the environment, so I signed us up. We're also looking into adding more insulation in our attic, we are drape shopping and seeking energy efficient drapes, and we're thinking about going meatless two days a week. (It takes a lot of resources to raise a cow into a meal.) I've also been more diligent about turning off the TV and flipping power switches to off during the day when none of the attached gadgets are in use. Did you know TV's alone are responsible for 10% of your electric bill?
Though I'm not getting too much of my spring break list accomplished, I still feel like I got something important done.
3 comments:
Enjoyed catching up on your recent posts! Good reading and lots to think about! No pop for me but hubby LOVES his diet pop and coffee! He's old enough to make his own choices, lol!
About going green - we've been going green decades before it was popular - since before the middle of the last century!
meatless two days… i could do that. wait. does that count fish?
can i have eggs? how hard-core meatless do you mean?
as americans, we have this awful sense of entitlement. of wide open spaces. of endless resources. so the idea of saving doesn't occur to us… and i'm speaking generally, of course.
i am that way with dish detergent. i squirt with reckless abandon at the beginning of a bottle and then use sparingly at the end. i write huge at the beginning of a post it and then cram these teeny tiny words in at the end.
i guess it's human nature.
when i was in europe, i encountered clever space-saving solutions and a sensitivity about conservation. in china, i noticed that every single morsel of something is used {why you'll find the chicken head and feet alongside the rest of the [entire] chicken}.
we can be so wasteful.
i recycle. i turn off the water when i brush my teeth. i turn off lights. i ride my bike sometimes to the market. we use {and reuse} cloth napkins.
we're aware. and we're trying.
great post!
When my Dad was here in January, we switched a lot of our lightbulbs over to EE version. Mainly, Dad was here to catch up on his Daddy Do list, and he said, "Let's use these so they'll last longer" & I bought into it...
Anyway.. My point is, our recent NIPSCO energy consumption statement said we had consumed 20% less total energy (NG & E) in February than in January. And that included the increase heating consumption during the 2011 Blizzard.
So yes, small changes really do go a long way...
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