A day after I replaced a whopping two lightbulbs with compact flourescent bulbs, I read an article in the New York Times that basically scoffed at my feeble attempts at reducing my carbon footprint. My co-worker forwarded it to me. It starts with a family in New York determined to reduce their energy use to 10% of the national average. They've unplugged their fridge and use frozen water to cool food in the summer and store food outside in the winter. I'm not sure what their homemade composting toilet is, but I don't think I want to know. At least the mother acknowledges that her neighbors think she's cooky.
It's a fun article that briefly made me want to have chickens running around my apartment so I could harvest my own eggs but once I got over that fantasy it didn't make me feel guilty. There have gotta be better and easier changes than following the lead of the guy in Culver City who sometimes relieves himself on his lawn to save a flush.
According to the article, Al Gore is on my side. His We Campaign encourages simpler steps like washing clothes in cold water (which I'm doing as I type). But I did take away one tip from the article. Green extreme, the Seattle version, has been washing and reusing the same plastic Ziploc bag for a year. That reassured me that I can reuse my plastic bags longer than the week I give them before I figure they're unsanitary or gross. The trick is giving the bag a good washing. All right, I'll try that. Not for a year, I'm not that crazy. At least not yet.
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