A Single Step — hello!
A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
– Confucius
The SEDC Editor recently posted an article inviting ideas for reducing the environmental footprint. I wrote several comments to that entry and have since become a guest contributor.
I hope to write about small, single, steps that you might consider taking. Some of the ideas might appeal to you and might be worth trying. You might have tried (and either adopted or discarded) other ideas years ago. We’d love to hear your feedback. What works? What doesn’t? How can you improve on each idea?
And if you have ideas for additional articles, please leave a comment and I’ll see what I can do.
Why single steps when the problems are so big?
The problem of saving the earth is bigger than any one of us. In a sense, it takes all of us working together to make a difference. Yet, at every turn, contemplating all that needs to be done feels overwhelming. (BTW, I commend our Editor for starting this blog, which represents quite a large commitment.)
I keep thinking that if we each make tiny changes in our lives, the sum total of our efforts will begin to add up to something significant. In addition, I’ve always found that it’s a lot easier to change in an evolutionary way, rather than a revolutionary one.
What have we talked about so far?
In the aforementioned posting, we’ve already mentioned the following:
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Landscaping with minimal impact
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Using freecycle to recycle household goods (http://www.freecycle.org/)
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An earth day celebration in Concord MA on April 28 with ongoing activities during the year (http://www.emersonumbrella.org/content_current/musketaquid/earthday.html)
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Recycling your cell phone (http://www.collectivegood.com/)
Future postings
Some ideas for future postings include:
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Recycling electronics
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Recycling household goods
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What we eat
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Reducing junk mail
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Eco travel
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Installing setback thermostats
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Supporting organizations that work toward protecting the environment
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Taking public transportation
Again, I am interested in your thoughts, too. Thanks for reading and welcome!
on April 24th, 2007 at 5:19 pm
Here are a few more ideas…
Kill-o-watt meter: One of the best ways to reduce your electricity use is to understand how you currently use it. You can plug your applience into the Kill-o-watt (about ~$20, available online), and the kill-o-watt into the wall. The meter will monitor the amp, voltage and wattage the appliance draws, and also measure the total kw-hour used since it was last reset. Try this for a few of your appliances, and you will learn quite a bit about how you use your electricity, and where the best possibilities to economize are. (E.g., is it worth it to turn off my desktop when I leave the house for a few hours? To turn off my cable modem when I leave town for the weekend?)
Smart Meters: These are one step beyond kill-o-watts. They cost $150, but NSTAR *may* soon be rolling out a free or reduced-price trial to some customers. Its a monitor which displays (and posts to your Net-accessible account) exactly how much power your house is drawing at any given moment. They’ve been rolled out in Canada, a few European countries (from memory, most of Italy, and part of the UK) and now California. Studies have shown that merely making people aware of how much electricity they use reduces consumption by 5 to 15%
Vampires: Pretty much any appliance that is remotely controlled draws power *evern when not in use.* (Think of it as sitting around saying, “should I turn on now? How about now? Now? Now?) Rather than simply turn off your TV or stereo when not in use, put them on a power strip. Turn the strip off when you go to bed at night, and on when you come home from work.
Carpooling: It would be great if there were enough critical mass to make newly created GoLoco (http://goloco.org/) to Sudbury. (Founded by the founder of ZipCar, it automates the process of finding people to carpool with.)
Clotheslines: This might raise issues within the family or neighborhood, but dryers use *lots* of energy. Hanging clothes outside on a sunny day avoids that. Why buy solar panels when you can harvest the sunlight directly?
on April 24th, 2007 at 6:56 pm
Sheryl Crow has an idea.
on April 24th, 2007 at 11:50 pm
Sigh… I cannot express how much I hate asinine (pun intended), suggestions like Sheryl Crow’s. When trying to convert people to your cause, why start with the more mockable ideas?
on April 25th, 2007 at 12:46 am
yes, indeed, the old reductio ad absurdem strategy — take a proposition and ridicule it by reducing it endlessly until you arrive at its logical (or even better) illogical conclusion. Then declare the whole thing to be ridiculous. Right now, Sheryl Crowe isn’t looking too good in my book, though she wasn’t much on my radar before this.
on April 25th, 2007 at 7:15 pm
“It seemed like Sheryl was trying to be a little bit cheeky, no pun intended,” said Michelle Lee, executive editor of In Touch weekly.
on April 25th, 2007 at 7:17 pm
Actually Josh’s recommendation went along with something I read recently. On a 101 Ways To get Started checklist from Body+Soul Magazine, it listed Buy Recycled Toilet Paper. So Im wondering….do I have to set up a new bin now next to my paper and plastics? Is there a drop off collection agency in town?