Every magazine I pick up these days has the word “green” somewhere on the front cover. From “Green Cleaning and Cooking” to “Enviro-Friendly Homes, “green” is the “it” word. I must admit having seen the movie, An Inconvenient Truth, I am much more eco-conscious and am trying to walk more, drive less, particularly because I have a gas guzzling SUV.

Living up at the cabin for the summer, I am aware of how little energy we consume. Our “grid” consists of four six-volt, deep cell batteries, four solar panels, a generator and a propane tank, that gets filled once a year. This limited supply of power has had a dramatic effect on our behavior.

For example, at the cabin I only turn on lights when it gets dark, then never more than two at a time. We use low watt bulbs. At home, it is not uncommon for us to leave lights on day and night.

My lawn at the cabin consists of hearty weeds and a few scrawny blades of grass. As a result, I use the Weed Eater once or twice over the summer. Grass at home gets cut every 10 days, complete with leaf blower to keep things tidy, and semi-weekly watering to keep everything green.

When it comes to laundry, I have a high energy washing machine and a 20 foot clothesline strung across the front of our cabin. I don’t have a clothesline at home, or even a drying rack for that matter. As for dishes, we take turns washing up, but at home – you guessed it, everything goes into the dishwasher.

As for appliances, we have a propane fridge, stove and fireplace. In the city, we have the same ones and then some. Freezer, microwave, dishwasher, garburator, TV’s, stereos, alarm system, and fans to name a few.

We even have a low water toilet; button on the left for pee and button on the right for, well you know how it goes. But at home, we flush a lot of water down the drain.

How did our energy consumption get so out of hand? Was it modernization, laziness or accessibility?

I know I can live a simpler life and use a lot less energy. I am going to start off by turning off the lights until we really need them. Next week the dishwasher?

Here’s to going “green”.

Cheers,

Julie

This entry was posted on Monday, August 13th, 2007 at 6:17 pm and is filed under Fix It. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.