How green can you go?
October 25, 2008
We’ve heard from a lot of people who are “powering down” their households in various ways, taking mass transit or shopping more carefully. But some people in are taking it farther, way farther.
A recent article in the New York Times profiles several “fully green” citizens, who are totally committed to reducing their carbon footprints. Sharon Astyk, who lives in a farmhouse in Knox, NY, has unplugged the family refrigerator and plays catch with her six-year-old son instead of making the long drive to a baseball league. Jay Matsueda goes without heat or air conditioning in his Culver City, California condominium, and runs his 1983 Mercedes on waste cooking oil. Anita Lavine reuses Ziploc and other plastic bags — for up to a year. Some people find this behavior extreme. If you think just about anything can be recycled or reused, “you may be ‘carborexic,’” the article quipped. But environmentalists like David Gershon, author of Low Carbon Diet, applaud this vanguard for setting an example the rest of us might aspire to. What do you think?
I think these people are to
I think these people are to extreme for me. I can still go more green by doing what they are doing but for now I will stick to flourescent lightbulbs, recycling, and walking instead of driving. Good Work Though!! =)
I think what these people
I think what these people are doing is great. They are an example of what we should all be doing to live more sustainably.
Like Pete Seeger sings (taken from a Berkeley city council resolution):
“If it can’t be reduced, reused, repaired, rebuilt, refurbished, refinished, resold, recycled or composted, then it should be restricted, redesigned or removed from production.”
If we all lived by these rules, we could reduce our carbon footprint and reduce our negative impact on this planet.
I think one way of going
I think one way of going green is to become vegetarian or at least consume less meat. It takes 5,000 gallons of water to produce 1 lb of meat whereas 25 gallons produces 1 lb of wheat. Also the meat industry responsible for one third of the fossil fuel emissions in this country. Imagine if we all stopped eating meat...