Happy Earth Day
I think most of my close friends would agree that this title is somewhat humorous, since most of the time I do whatever I can do to belittle environmentalists, greens, or whatever you want to call them. While I was at work today, they were having an Earth Day presentation in the cafeteria and I was amused with the fact that they chose to celebrate it by looping a video on an overhead projector about conserving energy (Irony) when I started thinking about things that I did in my day to day life that would have one of these pinko hippies give me a hug:
- I carpool with my wife. We have 2 cars, but we decide to just drive each other to work. Not only do we get to spend some time together, we also save money on gas. And, I suppose, we make little Disney animals smile at our ecologically-friendly decision.
- We keep the thermostat off during the day. Once we get home, we turn it on or turn on our gas fireplace just long enough to keep comfortable in the evening and then get home. (In the summers, we probably use the air conditioning more, since neither Jess nor I can tolerate being too hot.) This, again, saves us money and, again, cute Disney animals like it.
- As an addendum to the above, we explicitly picked an apartment that faced a forest, which will block some of the sunlight during the summer, which will (hopefully) reduce our AC bill.
- I’d have to say about 1/5 - 1/4 of our garbage is recycled. Most of our kitchen garbage just goes straight into the trash, since sorting takes a lot of room that we don’t have in the kitchen. However, we get a huge number of bags and boxes that all get recycled.
- I only run the dishwasher when it is full.
- We use a Brita water filter instead of bottled water.
What’s the common theme with all of this? Saving money. However, when I went to this site and entered my data, it turns out when you adjust for carpooling and that type of thing, it turns out that I actually have a smaller carbon footprint than the industrial world’s average, just by doing some things that any of you can do to save money in this economic climate.
When I was in 6th grade, an environmentalist came to our class to give a presentation about what horrible, narcissistic consumers we all were. I’m paraphrasing, of course, but I’ll say that she left a permanent impression on me to basically eschew anything that had to do with being a good steward of he Earth. Then I started remembering some of the activities that environmentalists and others had put on in the name of preserving the Earth:
- The presentaiton at the office: wasting a lot of energy on a power-hungry projector.
- A store was offering *a* free reusable grocery bag. Most people will take them and never use them again, so you wasted the energy and resources to make these bags.
- When I was at VT, a student organization was handing out “earth day” like lanyards. Every college student on the planet has 5. Again, you wasted a lot of energy and resources on “stuff” that most people would just take and throw in the corner of their dorm.
When I was writing this, I was kinda reminded of a line from one of my favorite movies, Lawrence of Arabia:
- Bentley: I heard in Cairo that Major Lawrence has a horror of bloodshed.
- Feisal: That is exactly so. With Major Lawrence, mercy is a
passion. With me, it is merely good manners. You may judge which motive
is the more reliable.
With environmentalists, conservatism is a passion. With me, it is merely smart money. You may judge which motive is the more reliable.
Happy Earth Day.