So we’re moving this week. So we need boxes. A boatload of boxes.
But we resisted the temptation to buy them from the UPS store this afternoon. Why? Because there are plenty of boxes on this Earth already.
So we used a couple my mom brought us from her hospital. We got creative with some other packing maneuvers, made extra space by consolidating some boxes we already had, and mom’s bringing a heck of a lot more boxes tomorrow.
Ooooh, that little green light really drives
me crazy! And yeah, I own a Kawasaki
DVD/CD player. So what?
I finally got home to my apartment tonight. For various and sundry reasons, my 10 day trip had extended to nearly 2 months, and so the apartment had been closed up for almost all that time (thanks to my Mom for saving my plants and Mike for saving my overstressed mailbox).
When I arrived home, I was delighted to find that I’m brilliant. Before leaving in February, I had switched off the power strip that feeds my television and stereo. This is particularly important because my stupid stereo sits on standby when it’s not on. I’ve heard some unbelievable statistics about the amount of U.S. energy wasted on standby electronics, but since it’s late and I’m sick, I’ll search for those specifics another day.
For now, suffice it to say, the simple flip of a switch saved me a bunch of money and the Earth a bunch of energy. In the future I’m going to power down every night — not just before trips.
I really needed some healthy yummy juice yesterday, so I bought a bottle (at the local food co-op in Mount Rainier, of course - Glut represent!). This morning I really needed some healthy yummy water, so I poured some from the tap (through a Brita filter of course because this is Washington DC and I have no interest in spending the rest of my week here in the bathroom), and into yesterday’s juice bottle. I carried it around with me all day — to a conference, to the park, even to a coffeeshop — refilling it in water fountains when necessary. What are the advantages of this?
(1) tap water is free. bottled water is not free.
(2) No extra bottle means 1 less plastic bottle produced, 1 less bottle of water shipped across the country, 1 less plastic bottle sitting in a landfill somewhere. If I use this bottle all week, that’s 7 less bottles. If I get a permanent water bottle, like a Nalgene, that means hundreds fewer bottles produced, shipped, and sent to landfills every year — just because of me. That feels good.
(3) I get a hint of flavor in my water.
(4) I get to carry my “Naked” bottle around longer.
Do you know that human beings spend $100 billion dollars on bottled water every year, but for just $15 billion a year everyone on the planet could have safe drinking water and proper sanitation? It’s true. Did you ever stop to think that, at $1.50-$2.50 per liter ($6-10 per gallon), bottled water costs twice what gasoline costs in the United States? Get the whole low-down on the implications of buying bottled water from this excellent OneWorld article from last year.
Seems like an inocuous thing to do. It was one of those one-person-at-a-time bathrooms in a small restaurant. Imagine how much electricity is wasted every day in all the millions of small public bathrooms not being used! Think about all the bathroom lights that get left on all night long because the person who pays the bills isn’t around at closing time. It was around the end of the night when I came out of this bathroom and turned out the light, so it’s possible I saved a whole night’s worth of electricity. Maybe not, but a girl can dream, right?
Quick one tonight. I’m flying tomorrow (if the snow holds off like I expect it to), so I offset my emissions today — carbon emissions, that is. I’ve written about this before, because I think it’s important so I do it every time I fly. Actually, I should probably set up an account to offset all my day-to-day emissions (although since I don’t own a car or a home or even commute to work, my largest contribution of greenhouse gas might come from my bum — do human gas expulsions contain methane, or just cows’?).
Anyhow, I digress. So I’m offsetting my share of the airplane emissions I’ll be responsible for tomorrow. Read more about how that works here. In the future, when I’m not on such a tight travel deadline, I hope to start taking the train between Denver and NY/DC — it’s about a two-day ride crossing most of middle America and stopping for half a day in Chicago. And it costs about $200 one-way. Not quite as cheap as flying (even when I add in my emissions payment), but not too much more either.
Staying on the anti-leather theme today. It might seem difficult to find dress shoes and running shoes that aren’t made from dead cow parts. But I’ve discovered that, once you start looking — and particularly once you start to know where to look — it’s actually not that hard. You might not have the same selection, sure, but you can find some sweet kicks.
Today I bought a nice pair of dress shoes and some Doc Marteniques from Payless. Yep, Payless. Turns out they sell a lot of shoes made of “all man-made materials.” I doubt they stock them for the same reasons I like to buy them, but who cares. I’m also not quite sure what exactly is meant by “all man-made materials,” — probably I should try to find out — but for now I know it’s not leather anyway.Check out the brand State Street. They do some good work, and no cows are harmed in the process (that I know of).
To buy online, check out vegshoes.com — they’re based in the UK, but they’ll ship anywhere.
I don’t have a problem with JetBlue leaving its passengers on the tarmac for hours on end. Frankly, screw-ups like that happen in all facets of life from time to time, and I can forgive them. What I do have a problem with, however, is JetBlue’s seat covering.
You see, I think animals have the right to not be raised and killed for their hides. I took back my leather jacket a few years ago. I don’t buy leather belts anymore. And I prefer not to fly airlines that use lots of leather for their seats.
You’ve probably seen JetBlue’s commercials touting their leather seats. A quick google search turns up their leather seat giddyness on their Web site, in press releases, annual reports — all over the place. Well I’m not so giddy. So, given the choice between Frontier and JetBlue, I bought a Frontier ticket today.
(By the way, if you are an animal lover, check out this global campaign for a Universal Declaration on Animal Welfare — it’s called “Animals Matter to Me” and they’re getting close to 500,000 signatures.)
Normally I don’t buy magazines like Time that provide mostly news bytes with little real context or deeper exploration of issues. But the April 9 edition includes 51 things each of us can do to reduce our impact on global warming. Some great ideas — many of them simple and as such really in line with this blog. Includes things like bringing your own bags to the grocery store (the thought that launched this blog), going vegetarian (cuts 1.5 times more carbon even than switching from a regular car to a hybrid), and building a bamboo fence.
I’ve only flipped through it so far, but my mother- and father-in-common-law read through it all this afternoon and said there were a bunch of things they realized they already do, and a bunch of things that are not that practical to do easily at home. But there are certainly also some good ideas that we can start doing immediately and some others we’re going to file away for later.
Ok, I’m doing a new thing now. I was inspired by “An Inconvenient Truth” this afternoon (depsite watching it in black and white due to an unknown TV malfunction). If you haven’t seen it, the message is basically this:
(1) the Earth’s climate is definitely changing,
(2) human activity is the overwhelming cause,
(3) there will definitely be significant effects for all of us, and probably catastrophic ones if we don’t change our ways immediately. But,
(4) we can still change course, and
(5) as individuals, it’s up to us both to change the way we interact with nature and
(6) to demand our politicians institute even more widespread changes.
I guess this blog is mostly about #5 — what we can each do in our daily lives — although More…
So we’re moving this week. So we need boxes. A boatload of boxes.
Actually it was a juice bottle first.
Quick one tonight. I’m flying tomorrow (if the snow holds off like I expect it to), so I offset my emissions today — carbon emissions, that is. I’ve written about this before, because I think it’s important so I do it every time I fly. Actually, I should probably set up an account to offset all my day-to-day emissions (although since I don’t own a car or a home or even commute to work, my largest contribution of greenhouse gas might come from my bum — do human gas expulsions contain methane, or just cows’?).
I don’t have a problem with JetBlue leaving its passengers on the tarmac for hours on end. Frankly, screw-ups like that happen in all facets of life from time to time, and I can forgive them. What I do have a problem with, however, is JetBlue’s seat covering.
Ok, I’m doing a new thing now. I was inspired by “An Inconvenient Truth” this afternoon (depsite watching it in black and white due to an unknown TV malfunction). If you haven’t seen it, the message is basically this:
