The Ins and Outs of an Ordinary Life

Friday, July 06, 2007

Big Foot

Over the last week, I have been thinking about my environmental footprint, and quite frankly, I feel like Big Foot. We live in the suburbs and have to drive everywhere. We have not 2 but 3 cars. Our house is not small, and heating and cooling the house requires big hunks of energy. We are very plugged in: 4 computers, 3 TVs, Tivo, Playstation, 3 iPods, 4 cell phones, you get the idea. We do make the effort to do somethings right: setback thermostats, CFLs everywhere, recycling as much as possible, again you get the idea. But the last few days I have really opened my eyes to the resources I consume without even thinking about it. Everything is disposable. I am finding I have to be incredibly vigilant to decrease my footprint-- it's not easy! But I am definitely putting more thought into consuming less resources. I have adopted the BYOB (Bring Your Own Bag) philosophy. I am trying to think about combining errands so I don't have to drive as much. I'm a vegetarian. Every time I put a disposable container of any kind into the garbage I try to think of how I could have avoided using it. I am trying to use less of everything that comes in plastic containers so I don't have to buy them as often. I'm not ready for really big changes, but I am trying to make small changes that are easy to live with. I'm not sure how far I will go with this, but I would like to think that even small changes can add up.

1 comment:

Flo said...

Good for you!!! I don't buy into the whole global warming hysteria. As a scientist I've studied much of the empirical data and it's being grossly misinterperted. BUT, I firmly believe that we should do everything we can to minimize our impact on the earth. So I do try to do the same things as you, BYOB, less plastic, reuse things, etc. Reduce, reuse, recycle. So, yeah for you, every little bit helps :)