I'm upstairs right now being veeeewwwwy quiet because Jay is downstairs hunting wabbits.
Ok, he's not really hunting, but I'm still being vewy quiet. He's programming on his computer and when he's programming, the rule is, Nobody is Allowed to Move, Breathe, Talk or Otherwise Show Signs of Life. All of those are no-no's. If I go downstairs, I have to crawl so I don't catch his eye.
No, I'm just kidding. About the crawling part. We just have to put our Rules of Engagement into effect when Jay's working at his computer, and the easiest way to make sure they happen is for me to stay upstairs and out of sight. Sometimes when he comes to and focuses on the world again, he comes upstairs and says hi and gives me a little shoulder rub and the world is right again.
This is all fine today because it gives me a chance to blog about my latest obsession. Unfortunately, when you're a Kimball, you master obsession into a fine art. But I hate to say what my obsession is, because it's the biggest cliche in the world right now, and I HATE cliches. I even obsess about trying really hard NOT to use cliches, because they bug me so much. So I'll show you. Here's what I think about 20 hours a day...
But this Going Green obsession is unlike my others. I can easily take care of a diet coke obsession, or Butterfingers, or M & M's, or having every possible shade of pink toe nail polish, or finding perfect jeans, or keeping my pens lined up, or whatever. I can just go out and get any of them, or do them, many times over and eventually I move on to something else. And I do.But I am really troubled by this green thing because I don't know what do to. I don't know what direction to head in first. And I really feel like we have a problem that's only going to keep getting worse unless every single one of us makes efforts to improve the situation.
So I made the mistake of watching Al Gore's, An Inconvenient Truth a few weeks ago. This movie is about global warming, but really, it all goes hand in hand. I had hoped the movie was going to give me some swell ideas on how to be a more responsible citizen, but it didn't cover that as much as the global warming problem and all of it's terrible numbers.
So now I'm obsessed with the statistics of it all. I'm obsessed with the polar bears that can't swim to the next ice floe and then they drown and I honestly feel that it's because of my plastic bottles that the next ice floe isn't there for them.
So, okay, I can immediately cut out my plastic bottles, and I did, but then there's my grocery bags. So I ran to Whole Foods, where I have never shopped for food in my life, and I bought cute, recycled, re-usable grocery bags, which I kept forgetting I had for a month, so I kept buying things at stores and carrying it all loose to my car, which was awkward and probably looked funny. I finally remembered I had them and used them today for the first time.
So, now I'm plastic bottle-free and plastic grocery bag-free. But I feel that's still not good enough. So I started walking home from work when it wasn't raining. It's only a mile, but it's still 2 miles that Jay wasn't driving to pick me up.
One of these days, I'll buy a car and when I do, I'll put a lot of effort into getting a very economical one (gas-burning-wise), since that's a good thing to do. And if I had a house, I'd definitely put a rain barrel in my yard and use rain water in my yard and grow a vegetable garden and so on. But without a house, I feel that I'm not really doing my part.
And this all sounds funny, but I spend a LOT of time thinking about this stuff and it's driving me crazy. So I just want to know, what do the rest of you do to reduce, reuse and recycle at home? I'm sure there are a hundred bright solutions that we can all put to work to make sure the polar bears have a landing pad out there in the ocean.
Short of going out and buying crazy Ed Begley's book on how to go green at home, and the rest of these, I need to come up with some answers for myself.
So, I'm anxiously waiting to hear what you have to say and what you do at home that I can do too and feel better about those darn polar bears! Thanks
9 comments:
Weird because sometime not to long ago I too obsessed over this. I even researched it. I watched the film too and cried over the polar bears. Sad. But I must admit I'm kind of lazy when it comes to taking action. I throw away anywhere from 55-65 diapers a week. That is two whole garbage sack worth. I feel bad about it but am too lazy to do clothe or any other alternative. But here is a list of some things you can do although I don't necessarily do them myself:
-Hang clothes to dry
-use those funky lightbulbs that emit absolutely NO light
-become BFF's with Leo
-recycle
-use "green" paper products from whole food ie. paper towels, toilet paper etc.
-wear hemp clothing
-dreadlock your hair
I'm kidding about those last two. Kind of.
I'm the recycling nazi! I will pull things out of the garbage that my family throws away that should be recycled. If I'm out in public with plastic water bottles I bring them home just to recycle them. I think recycling is one BIG first step that can be done. It makes me feel good. It won't create a landing pad for the polar bears but it will help the earth not turn into one large garbage dump for our children.
Sorry one more thing....Shauna if you're throwing away 55-65 diapers a week then Sarah has a serious problem.
Yeah, I've been toting my empty plastic bottles around with me for a long time, because it's impossible to find a place to recycle while out and about. I also recycle everything, including the smallest scrap of paper and toilet paper rolls. I've been considering hanging slightly used TP up to dry for more than one use. Is that weird?
The diaper stat was pre-Sabine potty trained. Sorry for the mis-information.
I just packed up some extra life jackets I had and sent them to the polar bears.
Ah, I see the rules of engagement are the same at your place as they are here! :-)
Programming requires mad focus and skillz...
Speaking of which - hey, Jay, when are you going to give me back those nunchucks you borrowed...
y'know, the set I gave you just after we got done jumping bikes on the front sidewalk!?!?
;-)
Seriously, though, I try to keep the green thing simple - it increases the chances that a lazy guy like myself will make progress! Here's my simple rule of thumb:
make sure recycle bin is more full than the garbage bin.
We've been successful with that small step for as long as I can remember in our current place.
Good stuff to think about, as always, kristin!
OK, I'm going to throw a wrench in the whole recycle thing. Al Gore has no idea what he's talking about. The temperature of the Earth (global warming) has been going up and down for years. If the government hadn't paid farmers more money to raise corn for fuel, there wouldn't be lines and riots over the scarcity of wheat. The world was made to support us...as long as we are here. Now, this doesn't mean I don't turn off my lights, or let the water run while I brush my teeth, or throw my plastic in the garbage instead of in the recycling bin. It is all the environmentalist crazy types that won't let us drill for our oil, on our continent. We have to take care of our world...but moderation in all things, right?
Well, Cathy,
Temps do go up and down as cycles. But the magnitude of the current cyccle is way beyond any cycle in the last 600,000 years. People [way to many] are the impact. So one way or another more - more - more people will shortly mean way fewer people. It is just that simple, we are living ourselves off the planet. And now it is hitting us we are all surprised... But the Romans, Greeks and Egyptians were way surprised when their civilizations crumbled to dust...
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