Living greener

[tracilicious]

Originally Posted by Alex Stroup

Most of my environmental tips boil down to one underlying principal:

Don't confuse "discomfort" as a synonym for "anything less than complete, perfect comfort." Much of our energy inefficience comes from never wanting to experience any inconvenience or discomfort where anything less than perfect comfort is labelled as uncomfortable and anything less than perfect convenience is labelled as inconvenient. Thus we want every gadget to do everything that might concievably be wanted and we want it to do it immediately. Therefore we frequently end up making purchases based on the less than 1% outlying anomolies than for the 99% standard uses.

I think this is an extremely good principle.

The transportation thing is frustrating to me. I would love to have a newer hybrid or electric car. But being four people living on one income, it isn't going to happen anytime soon. I drive my gas guzzling Jeep Cherokee because that's what I have. It's what I could afford at the time and it isn't getting replaced anytime soon. Same with solar panels. As soon as I get a spare $10,000 I'll pop one right onto the roof.

Our public transportation system is ridiculous. It takes several hours to get 15 miles away. Totally not an option. Michael will be getting a motorcycle in the next few months though, which will be much more efficient for him.

I think the more effort thing definitely applies to the way people eat. Organic locally grown produce has huge environmental benefits (not to mention health benefits). It costs a bit more, but all you need to do is give up packaged food in most cases to even out your grocery bill. The busiest person can set aside a few hours a week and prepare meals and freeze them. It's all time management and priorities.