Stop talking green and start doing the little things. (buying, paper, cardboard)
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A Big one for me is the over zealous and changed perception of being overly HGTV Clean. As in stigmatizing "ohh, you're dirty and stinky".
I've observed, people love taking daily long hot showers for no other purpose than to 'feel good'. Water? Plenty in nature.. but they don't see how much energy and fossil fuels are used for the heating process of hot water. Say all you want that natural gas is clean. BS, it's a fossil fuel that's extracted along with oil.
Then you have laundry. Wear it a few hours? Throw it in the laundry, then dryer.
At the extreme, I have a friend, who's wife is a 'clean' freak. On laundry day, they do at least 6 loads for them and their 2 young kids. Basically machine and dryer is running all day using alot of electricity, hot water. Then you have all the chemicals known as soap or detergent giving the impression of 'natural freshness'.
This stuff goes into the water system, and leaks out into the eco system damaging it in ways we don't realize. Also, those daily long hot showers, dousing yourself in soap/shampoo, you're really just wreaking havoc on your own bio-eco system. It's not daily 'dirt' that's really toxic (it's toxic from a social stigma point of view), it's those chemical compounds that's leaching into every pore into your body and lymph nodes.
Just think of how many people (millions) are doing this. Cutting back on this would IMO go along way for little pain outside of psychological pain.
I've observed, people love taking daily long hot showers for no other purpose than to 'feel good'. Water? Plenty in nature.. but they don't see how much energy and fossil fuels are used for the heating process of hot water. Say all you want that natural gas is clean. BS, it's a fossil fuel that's extracted along with oil.
Then you have laundry. Wear it a few hours? Throw it in the laundry, then dryer.
At the extreme, I have a friend, who's wife is a 'clean' freak. On laundry day, they do at least 6 loads for them and their 2 young kids. Basically machine and dryer is running all day using alot of electricity, hot water. Then you have all the chemicals known as soap or detergent giving the impression of 'natural freshness'.
This stuff goes into the water system, and leaks out into the eco system damaging it in ways we don't realize. Also, those daily long hot showers, dousing yourself in soap/shampoo, you're really just wreaking havoc on your own bio-eco system. It's not daily 'dirt' that's really toxic (it's toxic from a social stigma point of view), it's those chemical compounds that's leaching into every pore into your body and lymph nodes.
Just think of how many people (millions) are doing this. Cutting back on this would IMO go along way for little pain outside of psychological pain.
We take long how showers when we are sick. Otherwise e keep it to a few minutes. I am trying to get people to take "california" showers aka military showers. To save money. Our state has too much water, and the on demand heater does not use much gas at all. We heat the house with gas, cook with gas, water heat with gas, dryer is gas, generator is gas (when power goes out). Last month our gas bill was 1/4 of the electric/gas combined bill. It really does not amount to much. The big water waster is running the water until it gets warm. No real practical way around that. When we had more people in the house we took showers one after the other so it was nto an issue, but now we are hours apart.
Our bigger use is electricity. I do not understand where it all goes. Electricity powers sump pumps, de-humidifiers, hot water pumps for the heat system, computers and hair dryers. Every thing else is minimal. Lights are almost entirely LED and all the other little items amount to nothing (phone laptop chargers, radio, clocks, curling iron, TV). It does not make sense for our electric bill to be so much higher than gas in the winter.
The real killer use of power is air-conditioning. If everyone would skip air-conditioning, we would have an excess of electricity.
I raised all 6 of my kids in good old-fashioned rubber pants and cloth diapers.
That is not necessarily the "greenest" choice in areas that are prone to drought and water restrictions. I considered cloth diapers, but abandoned the idea when I realized how many extra laundry loads it would mean. It was disposables for us, but I also made a point of potty training my children earlier than is fashionable nowadays. There were no 3-year-olds in diapers around our house.
Then you have laundry. Wear it a few hours? Throw it in the laundry, then dryer.
At the extreme, I have a friend, who's wife is a 'clean' freak. On laundry day, they do at least 6 loads for them and their 2 young kids. Basically machine and dryer is running all day using a lot of electricity, hot water.
I have a friend with 5 kids who is like this. If it touched someone's body, no matter for how short a time, she washes it. All pajamas get washed every morning. All towels every day. Every single thing the family members wore gets washed at night. She even said, "I just don't feel right at home unless I can hear the washer running."
The only things I ALWAYS wash after one wear are underwear, socks, and workout clothes. And I save those up and wash them all once a week.
I regularly take 60-90 minute showers. My water bills are insane, but worth it in my opinion.
I also set my thermostat at 62 degrees overnight in the summertime. Also worth the extra cost.
I don't care about any perceived damage to the environment. Global warming is fake.
Wow! Lucky you are not on water restrictions as we are.
Climate change or not, we are in severe drought and we cooperate by aiming at three minute showers, driving dirty cars and bucket watering our favourite plants.
That is not necessarily the "greenest" choice in areas that are prone to drought and water restrictions. I considered cloth diapers, but abandoned the idea when I realized how many extra laundry loads it would mean. It was disposables for us, but I also made a point of potty training my children earlier than is fashionable nowadays. There were no 3-year-olds in diapers around our house.
Very true, thankfully, we live in an area with an abundance of fresh water, so washing diapers didn't present so much as a single problem for me.
Kept a stack of diapers in everyone's room after they were toilet trained as a stark reminder... wet or dirty your pants, there's a stack of diapers ready and waiting, and I won't hesitate putting them to use. Don't know how much of a deterrent it was, but 4 our of my 6 did reasonable well in the toilet training department, and the two that didn't were made examples of and were put back into rubber pants.
Age 4-1/2 years in our house when diapers were finally done. Talk about cost savings with cloth.
I am glad we are talking about these things.
I am one of the most greenest/anti toxic people I know.
That said I think most of your advice and replies from some people are bat**** crazy.
Just own it and do your best.
Thank you.
Andy
Those HGTV remodeling shows that promote gutting a perfectly good house because it's not perfectly up to modern decorating and remodeling standards... at the same time many wealthy people preach about green living, they live lifestyles that are quite contrary.
Going to a buffet, loading up your plate, only eating half of it, and then leaving, like my sister does every time she goes to eat somewhere. It seems to me some people just do rude things on purpose sometimes because they feel entitled. I still don't understand the psychology behind it.
In eastern WI it was just part of the culture to use paper bags... it was new to me when I came out to South Dakota and everyone used plastic bags.
Just forgo aircinditioning and you will do more than anything else you can come up with. The world population lived without it for 5000 years. We can live without it now. Americans might have to lose some weight to survive the heat, but we all need to anyway.
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