I've decided global warming is a bad idea and we should stop it immediately. We've taken drastic measures to go green. Here is a glimpse into our journey.
Step One: made the background of our website green.
Step Two: wrote a smug self-congratulatory Al-Gore-at-the-Academy-Awards-style blog post
Step Three: bought a couple of those green reusable bags from WinCo
Step Four: left said bags at home when I next went shopping but DIDN'T waste all the gas to go back home and get them.
Step Five: thought about teaching the kids the mantra of my grandpa "If it's yellow stay mellow. If it's brown flush it down" and decided I'd rather pay some guy a couple bucks to sprinkle plankton in the Pacific Ocean to offset the excess toilet water.
Step Six: felt superior remembering using cloth diapers on Random.
Step Seven: Read this (thanks Ellisa) and then felt superior remembering using disposable diapers on Savannah & Scout.
Step Eight: pulled out the dryer, removed the back and cleaned out the vent with the vacuum. No really...that's a good one.
Step Nine: Troy started walking to work...that's a good one too....and I'd really like to take credit for it but pretty much I'm just the cheer squad. Goooo Troy!
Step Ten: started bandying about phrases such as "carbon footprint" and "local provenance"
I hope this has helped you catch the vision of environmental consciousness.
In all seriousness...have any of you found ways to be more environmentally friendly without breaking the budget or recycling your kids in for a "greener" model?
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4 comments:
Do you notice that all the ways to go green are ways to save money? For the most part this is correct. If we purchase whole foods and cook them ourselves, they have more nutritional value and cost less, plus they don't waste the resources that prepared foods, processing and tranport costs do.
Save money and save the planet. What a concept, we can live simpler and as a result, our lives are fuller. It's almost counter intuitive.
I really wish that there actually existed more conclusive evidence that global warming is actually happening. Why do you want to fight it? Think of your poor peeps out in Michigan getting six inches of snow on Easter weekend! We'd love a warmer globe.
I forgot about my Michigan Peeps! That's it, I'm throwing away all my tin cans in the regular garbage!
How about I tell you the ways we are NOT going green?
1 - We live 50+ miles from work (though husband does carpool). It was as close as we could afford to buy a house.
2 - driving wailing baby around in the car to make him fall asleep.
3 - Using massive amounts of paper towels to clean up after toddler and baby.
4 - Swapped out energy efficient lightbulbs for the ones with 3 light levels because the "good" ones were too bright for sleeping baby.
5 - Leaving night-lights on all over the house so I don't trip and drop baby on my way to midnight feedings.
6 - Leave TV on all day for toddler.
Also, I don't think I agree with what David said about green living being cheaper. Yes, it's cheaper to do your own cooking than to eat out, but it's even cheaper to buy a couple of .50 pot pies and nuke them. I'm not sure how you can really factor in nutritional value or resources in a measurable/comparable way either. Most organic food isn't grown in the States, so making your own potpie isn't necessarily using less resources than buying Swansons, and you might even be using more packaging, since buying each veggie/meat separate would probably indicate more wrappings.
I think it would be great if going green was as black and white as it sounds, but there are a lot of factors that just aren't as intuitive as you might think.
-Ellisa, saving the planet one pot pie at a time.
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