Saintless

This post was inspired by the City Weekly Salt Blog. Jerre Wroble bemoans rising gas prices, and the inability to get around it’s side effects, ending with the question “Any suggestions?”

I started to reply, but it wound up being a really long reply, and a little off topic, then became more of a rambling self-evaluation, so I decided that it belonged on my blog as an independent post.

Without further ado, here you are, the answer to life, the universe and everything, as it applies to me.

Dealing with the widespread effect of high gas prices isn’t a simple solution deal. It’s kind of like dieting, it takes a lifestyle change, and in my case the solution is to be as green as possible. It’ll actually save money, over the long haul. It’ll cost more in the short run.

Biking to work may be practical one day a week, and carpooling the other 4. I currently work from home 2 days a week, and carpool in our hybrid SUV (Escape) the other 3. That will be changing, when my assignment at work does, but for now that’s where I’m at. I have a friend who owns a hybrid Prius, and works 4 long days a week, instead of 5. Check Google for carpooling options.

Buying local might save you (and the environment) for some things, and others you’ll need to look harder to find the right solution. I haven’t completely gotten there yet, but I do look around to see what I can buy locally, what small businesses I can patronize instead of warehouse stores. I look for things that were made or grown here in Utah, like produce, so they don’t have to be shipped across the country. We try to do things ourselves instead of buying pre-made items.

Spend some quality time with your offspring and have them walk or ride their bikes with you down to the store for a treat, instead of driving.

If you aren’t a gardener, plant an herb garden to get you started. Find neighbors or friends who can “garden share”, and trade produce with them. This is my big goal this year, along with making this neat composter.

Switch to an old-fashioned people-powered lawn mower, instead of a gas one. It’s probably easier than pushing a gas one, so what’s the point of the more expensive, harder to push and harder to maintain gas powered mower? If you have a huge lawn and a driving lawn mower, you probably water your lawn too much and should research best practices for taking care of your lawn, as well as consider xeriscaping.

If you just “have to” go to Ikea at the other end of the valley, find some friends who were going too, and split the gas money.

If you use an RSS Reader, subscribe to “green” blogs, often disguised as craft blogs. These will help you at least keep the ideas going in your head, and might spark some way you and your family can make a big impact that you hadn’t thought of before.

I’m not as green as I’d like to be. But, I’m working towards it. And it took a long time to get the level of buy-in from my boyfriend and kids that I wanted. They have always been supportive, but their mindset is a lot more like my own on this topic than it was a year or two ago. I’ve picked up ideas that I wanted to be part of this lifestyle change, and adopted them slowly.

I shop at Whole Foods a lot, and try to eat mostly organic food. This motivates me to be healthier overall, and when I’m tempted to eat total junk food, I think about the difference between Taco Hell and the food I usually eat is, and I’m totally turned off by the junk food. Organic meat is usually more expensive, though not always. And I’m cutting back my meat portions, and replacing it with veggies and fruit.

I browse the business directory on Local First occasionally, looking to see what stores I might be able to patronize. Make smart choices about where you do business. (For example, XMission uses 100% green power, plus they’re local – find other businesses who do the same) I’ll be attending the Farmer’s Market just as soon as it opens.

I teach my children what “waste” really means, and help them find ideas for what can be done with materials that might otherwise be thrown away, and how not to wind up with such items in the first place. (You should have heard the grilling my 8 year old gave me last week when we talked about this subject!)

We’ve been using shopping bags of our own for a couple of years. Sometimes we forget to bring them, but we’ve gotten to where we bring them 90% of the time now. And when we don’t, we don’t use bags we don’t need, and we ask for paper when it’s available. Those paper bags are what we use in the kitchen to put recycling in, so they always get recycled, and they get used in a practical manner.

We’ve switched over to CFLs throughout the house (I love the daylight ones!), although I can’t bring myself to give up some of my dimmer switches, so we still have a bit to go. We turn the lights out anytime we’re not using them. This didn’t used to seem like a big deal to me, but it’s a huge change from way-back-when.

We use a thermostat with a timer so that we can adjust temperatures in the house 4 times every day of the week.

Nothing will come easy, but if you take baby steps, and continue to increase your lifestyle change, it can be done. You’ll find that eventually you question yourself frequently about whether using or buying a certain item is waste, or how you can change and use less resources. This will really lead to balance, where the important items (like, for me, good toilet paper) are canceled out by your other choices.

Green choices today will save money over time. Companies will be pressured to go green, local products will be cheaper when they become more common, and because they aren’t shipped. As I said before, green is a lifestyle change, but it’s also a social change. And as more an more people make this change, good things will happen. It’ll bring jobs, it’ll be less expensive, and it’ll help keep our planet healthy, as well as the people on it.

Start with your thought process, though. Think about each of the choices you make, and consider what the more expensive, and the less green, choices are worth to you. Even if you don’t do anything about them, at first, it will lead to better choices.

P.S. The “quit bitching” wasn’t aimed at Jerre, and I realized as I reviewed this before posting that it might be taken that way. “Quit bitching” is my personal motto, it’s why I’m involved in politics, and I find that the idea behind “quit bitching and do something” is something very motivating to me, personally.

Update: Apparently, my boyfriend thought I was pointing fingers at him, so let me clarify. He’s always been supportive of whatever I wanted to do about this, but he’s gone from being ok with me doing it, to being an active participant in being green. And when we shop other places than Whole Foods, such as Smith’s or Dan’s, it’s not “his fault”. I still feel the need to buy some things at other places, and I can’t buy stuff like my brand of clothes detergent at any of the green shops.

Much thanks to my friend Janet Hurley who sent me a link to this article:

A few weeks ago, NASA’s chief climatologist, James Hansen, submitted a paper to Science magazine with several coauthors. The abstract attached to it argued — and I have never read stronger language in a scientific paper — that “if humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm to at most 350 ppm.”

Hansen cites six irreversible tipping points — massive sea level rise and huge changes in rainfall patterns, among them — that we’ll pass if we don’t get back down to 350 soon; and the first of them, judging by last summer’s insane melt of Arctic ice, may already be behind us.

So it’s a tough diagnosis. It’s like the doctor telling you that your cholesterol is way too high and, if you don’t bring it down right away, you’re going to have a stroke. So you take the pill, you swear off the cheese, and, if you’re lucky, you get back into the safety zone before the coronary. It’s like watching the tachometer edge into the red zone and knowing that you need to take your foot off the gas before you hear that clunk up front.

The article talks about the “magic number” of 350 PPM (parts per million), and how important it is. Bill McKibben actually offers some options that we don’t hear about very often. Not that they’re new and a total solution, but it’s nice to see proactive discussion. He ends with this:

After all, those talks are our last chance; you just can’t do this one lightbulb at a time.

We do have one thing going for us — the Web — which at least allows you to imagine something like a grass-roots global effort. If the Internet was built for anything, it was built for sharing this number, for making people understand that “350″ stands for a kind of safety, a kind of possibility, a kind of future.

Hansen’s words were well-chosen: “a planet similar to that on which civilization developed.” People will doubtless survive on a non-350 planet, but those who do will be so preoccupied, coping with the endless unintended consequences of an overheated planet, that civilization may not.

Civilization is what grows up in the margins of leisure and security provided by a workable relationship with the natural world. That margin won’t exist, at least not for long, as long as we remain on the wrong side of 350. That’s the limit we face.

Take a read – the article’s well worth your time, and I hope that you, too, will share the article with your friends and family, and promote it on your blog. We’ve got to stop bitching about the problem, and start acting.

Tags: action

According to DoNotMail.org, we average about 8 months out of our lives opening junk mail, and that’s not counting the stuff we throw away unopened.

I am going to give their service a try, and hopefully that will save a few trees. But, I’m also for a National Do Not Mail Registry list.

Local post office officials declined to comment directly on the registry, but did say a decrease in deliverable junk mail would have a negative impact on the postal service, since the majority of the mail the post office handles is what people term “junk mail.”

According to the Washington Post, our United States Postal Service has come out against the idea:

The agency has printed 3,000 “information packets” about the economic value of standard mail, with specific data for each of the 18 states that have considered a Do Not Mail Registry. It has dispatched postmasters to testify before legislative committees around the country.

“The Postal Service has come in and clobbered legislators,” said Todd Paglia, executive director of ForestEthics, an environmental group that has collected 289,000 signatures on an online petition to Congress that calls for a National Do Not Mail Registry. “It’s really a people-versus-special interest kind of battle.”

I’m sure that many mega-corporations find the idea harmful. But, that’s their problem. If they can’t come into the modern age where wasting resources is bad, and all things digital are good, the businesses deserve to go the way of the dodo bird.

It looks like there are a lot of resources online to try to rid yourself of junk mail, but since none of them appear to be all-inclusive, a person might waste 7 of the 8 months they’re trying to save! I like the idea of a voluntary do not mail registry.

Tags: National Do Not Call Registry

I just got this in an email:

Dear friend,

In nine days I’m going to Bali, Indonesia to address the UN Climate Change Conference. In front of representatives from the world’s countries, I will speak about the need for a visionary treaty to be completed, ratified and brought into effect everywhere in the world by 2010. I need you, your friends and family to sign this petition calling for a new, positive leadership role by our elected leaders. I will bring your signatures on stage with me as a clear demonstration of our resolve.

This petition shows our commitment to solutions to the climate crisis. Please add your voice today and urge your friends to add theirs. The time for action is now. Only together can we make the change.
Sincerely,

Go sign the petition!

Tags: Al Gore, UN Climate Change Conference

Leftover from last year’s Senate campaign, I still get Google Alerts for Pete Ashdown. To my delight this morning, I received two news articles talking about how Pete has switched XMission completely over to renewable energy.

“As one of Utah’s top consumers of electricity, I am proud that XMission is setting the example for other businesses. You can eliminate pollution from your business and be economically viable,” said Pete Ashdown, President and founder of XMission.

With this recent upgrade, XMission has increased its renewable energy purchase by 412%. In addition to its participation in the Blue Sky program since 2006, XMission has implemented green standards in its own data center. These improved standards include upgrading equipment and increasing efficiency of power and cooling systems.

XMission also participates in Salt Lake City’s e2 Business Coalition, which helps Salt Lake area businesses reduce their carbon footprint and encourages earth-friendly business practices, such as recycling, efficient lighting, and other measures.

This is one more example of why I supported Pete last year, and plan to support him in his next bid for Utah State Senator.

Congratulations, Pete! And thank you!

Tags: Green, Pete Ashdown, renewable energy

The latest buzz seems to be that Barack Obama and Ron Paul ought to be running mates, in one fashion or another. Let’s do a comparison and see how that might work out.

Lobbyists
Paul voted NO to H.R. 437, to require lobbyist disclosure of bundled donations, May 2007.
Barack Obama has spoken out against such bundling.

Energy Independence and Environmental Impact
Paul Voted NO to H.R. 6
Obama voted YES to H.R. 6
to move toward energy independence and security, to increase the production of clean renewable fuels, to increase the energy efficiency of products, buildings, and vehicles, to promote research on and deploy greenhouse gas capture and storage options, January 2007.

Paul Rated 5% in 2003 by the League of Conservation Voters, indicating anti-environment votes.
Obama rated 100%, the highest environmental rating by the LCV.

Paul Voted NO on raising CAFE standards and providing incentives for alternative fuels, August 2001.
Barack Obama believes that we can meet energy needs while also protecting our environment, with such things as a Cap and Trade system, finding alternative fuels, and that the way to achieve that is to invest in them.

Paul Voted NO on the Kyoto Protocol, Jun 2000.
Barack’s energy policies are in alignment with the Kyoto Protocol.

Big Business vs. The People
Paul spoke out against Network Neutrality.
Barack Obama is most certainly for Network Neutrality.

Paul Voted YES on restricting bankruptcy rules, making it harder for the average American, while protecting business, January 2004.
Barack Obama spoke on the Floor of the Senate against such restrictions.

Individual Rights
Paul Rated 0% by NARAL in 2003, indicating a pro-life voting record.
Barack Obama has a 100% score from NARAL.

Paul Rated 100% by FAIR (Federation for American Immigration Reform), indicating a voting record restricting immigration.
Obama wants tough, practical reform, but not an end to immigration.

Paul Voted NO on H.R. 2, to increase minimum wage to $7.25 in January 2007.
Barack voted YES to minimum wage.

Paul Voted YES on banning gay adoptions in DC in July 1999.
Barack Obama believes LGBT couples should have the same rights as everyone else.

Government Reform
Paul wants to close the Departments of Energy, Education & Homeland Security.
Obama wants to overhaul and improve them, not destroy them.

Paul wants to abolish federal Medicare and leave it to states.
Obama will give all of us healthcare that works.

Paul Voted NO on strengthening the Social Security Lockbox, May 1999.
Obama promises to fight for and strengthen Social Security.

Paul says he’ll abolish the IRS immediately after taking office.
Obama has a tax plan to both cut taxes and ease the hassle of filing.

In considering the above differences, and these are just a few, I do not believe that our country would benefit from a ticket including both of them. We need progress, and Ron Paul’s idea of progress is quite different from Barack Obama’s. Ron Paul’s voting history tells me he wants to protect businesses and eliminate government, while Barack Obama wants to protect the people of America, while eliminating government waste. Our President and Vice President should be working towards the same goals, not against each other with opposite goals.

I agree that Obama must work across party lines, which is usually the argument for this, but that doesn’t mean he needs to get in bed with them. He could pick Richardson, Edwards, or whoever it is that he’s inclined towards, and still be able to work just fine with the Republicans. That’s just who Obama is, and he doesn’t need a GOP running mate to do it.

Tags: bankruptcy, big business, energy, government reform, immigration, LGBT, lobbyists, network neutrality, rights, Ron Paul

Sit down, this may be shocking news.

Detroit has been lying about what they can do to increase gas mileage.

Yep, they have. Even to their own engineers, apparently.

An amateur mechanic named Jonathan Goodwin has proven that it’s possible to get far higher MPG along with far higher HP in just about any vehicle. He can turn a Hummer into a hybrid that gets better gas mileage and better horsepower.

And yet, any notion of Detroit or government interference with this type of technology is considered to be nothing more than conspiracy theory. I bet this gets ignored just like past proofs of these happenings.

I wonder how much he’d charge to convert a Jeep to a hybrid?

(h/t Kos of DailyKos)

Tags: conspiracy, hybrid, Jonathan Goodwin

Congress is about to give $50 Billion in tax subsidies for nuclear reactors to be built as part of the energy bill that is supposed to bring us clean energy. Nuclear energy is not clean energy. Anyone that doesn’t know this simply doesn’t want to.

Bonnie Raitt is joining MoveOn.org to work against this. She’s put out a music video (which isn’t half bad, by the way) where some of the facts about why this isn’t a good idea are presented. Facts like how 50,000,000 people will live within 2 miles of the transportation routes for the waste.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzPhRdwxb_Q&rel=1&border=0]

More information can be found at NukeFree.org.

Here’s the email she sent through MoveOn.org:

Dear MoveOn member,

When Jackson Browne, Graham Nash, many other bands and I played our “No Nukes” concerts in 1979 to 100,000 people, we never dreamed we’d have to come back almost 30 years later to fight the same fight all over again.

But it’s 2007, and here we are again. The nuclear industry just slipped a clause into the energy bill that will provide up to $50 billion in tax subsidies for to build new reactors—enough to launch a whole new generation of nukes! We’ve already got the safe, viable alternatives to replace the dirty energy we’re using now. Building new atomic reactors in an age of terror threats is not only scary, but the toxic waste from nuclear power threatens our health and our planet.

The nuclear option is not the way to go.

So I called my friends, and we recorded a music video to spread the word. We’ve also launched a petition, and I’m asking MoveOn members to sign on. Here’s what it says:

“America’s new energy policy needs to focus on safe and economic fuel sources. Congress must strip the nuclear tax subsidies from the energy bill before they pass it.”

Clicking below will add your signature (and you can also see the video that we produced on that same page):

http://pol.moveon.org/nukefree/o.pl?id=11429-6917764-SiA19B&t=4

When you’re done, please take a minute to pass it along to your friends.

$50 billion in loan guarantees is a lot of money—enough to cover financial risk for the big banks who want to get involved. In other words, if something goes wrong, it will be the American taxpayers who foot the bill, not Wall Street.

It makes no sense. We know nuclear facilities are a target for terrorists. We know nuclear energy is toxic to our health and environment. And we know solar and wind power are safer, cheaper, and getting easier to use every day. This should equal a big “no” on nuclear energy, and a big “yes” to investing in clean energy. But the nuclear industry and their friends in Congress don’t want to take no for an answer.

We know MoveOn members worked to pass this energy bill and most of it is great—we’ll get more solar and wind with this bill, and even more fuel efficient cars. We just need to ask Congress to take the nuclear subsidies out.

So that’s why we’re reaching out to you. No one is better than MoveOn when it comes to mobilizing quickly on important issues.

Can sign your name to the petition below and pass it along to your friends?

“America’s new energy policy needs to focus on safe and economic fuel sources. Congress must strip the nuclear tax subsidies from the energy bill before they pass it.”

http://pol.moveon.org/nukefree/o.pl?id=11429-6917764-SiA19B&t=5

Thanks for listening. Together we can find a way to a cleaner future.

–Bonnie Raitt, Musician
Thursday, October 18th, 2007

Tags: Bonnie Raitt, MoveOn, nuclear waste, tax subsidies

I’ve seen a post or two around that implied Lights Of Utah would accomplish nothing. I’m here posting to prove you wrong.

I’m not sure how many cars we made up for tonight by turning off our lights, but I’m glad we did it. I’m in the middle of a move, and I was packing kitchen stuff as my phone reminded me it was 10 minutes until Lights Off. I didn’t hear it. I also didn’t hear my boyfriend calling. I did happen to see my phone lit up, and called him back. He told me he wasn’t ready for Lights Off, because he had more work, but that he would turn all the lights off, and only use his computer. I rather panicked, because moving is a bit difficult without light. Then I realized that I’d invited at least 5 other people to take part, who said they would, so I couldn’t bail. Besides, I worked my ass off cleaning up the kitchen after my housemates, even though I haven’t used said kitchen in weeks (I won’t even go into the old chinese food dumped over dishes filling both sinks).

So, I turned out all the lights in the house, and waited out front for my sister to pick me up (my Jeep’s in the shop).

Upon arriving home (my boyfriend’s, where I’m moving, not the old house I’m moving from), I was informed that after my boyfriend turned out all the lights, he realized the coffee pot was boiling.

I love coffee. In fact, I think that my bloodstream has about 50% coffee at all times. Without coffee, I’ve been known to punch people. For no reason.

I recently bought a “2 minute coffee pot”. Turns out, it keeps the water hot at all times, like commercial makers do. So, when I flip the switch, I have coffee faster than I can brush my teeth.

Except it heats the water at all times. I kept thinking about feeling guilty, but I justified to myself that a “little” environmental waste was nothing next to killing people because I didn’t have coffee, right?

But, it boiled when he turned the lights out. So he turned it off. And I’m going to leave it off. I’m going to buy a coffee pot that has a timer and makes coffee at the time I tell it to, rather than one that heats water all day for no reason.

So, I don’t know how many cars that would equal, but I know that it’s making me waste less power heating water for the sake of heating water. And my boyfriend, who normally can barely put up with my activism, did have the lights turned out, though candles were lit and he had a flashlight going. But, he heard about this from more than just me, and felt it important enough to participate without my prodding. And he will eternally make fun of me for leaving lights on now, which will make me even more anal about turning them off. And I won’t make fun of him for unplugging the toaster anymore.

So, to all you naysayers, something positive did happen because of Lights Off Utah. And if it takes babysteps to make a difference, I’m more than willing, no matter how insignificant you think it may be.

Tags: energy, Lights Out Utah

Don’t forget, tomorrow evening is Lights Off Utah.

If you haven’t yet, take a moment to register, and enter for a chance to win energy saving products.

There’s a door poster you can print out saying you support the event (and possibly explaining to people coming to your door right about then why your lights are off – if they can read it!).

Tags: Lights Off Utah