Be Strong, Speak True, Spread the Peace

[filkertom]

Three words: Al. Gore. Rocks.

On a night when the Oscars™ officially went "green", An Inconvenient Truth won Best Documentary, and Melissa Etheridge won Best Song for "I Need To Wake Up" from that picture. The vid of the big moments is well worth watching -- go here.

Oh, and... Melissa Etheridge rocks, too. :)

So. Saving the earth. What are you planning to do over, say, the next few months to help the environment? I've got bottles and batteries to recycle, light bulbs to change to fluourescent, and a van to tune up.

Comments

[fair-witness.livejournal.com]

We use fluourescent lights all over the house (have for a couple years now, I think). Both my husband and I telecommute, which means our one vehicle only has to be filled up once a month. When we first moved into this house, we bought an energy-efficient refrigerator. When we replaced our dishwasher and washer and dryer a few years back, we bought energy-efficient models.

[fair-witness.livejournal.com]

I nearly forgot the most important thing. A few years ago, we signed up to get our electricity from "green" resources--primarily I think it's from the West Texas wind farm and solar collections, though there may be some in this area, too. As an incentive, back then they were offering us a fixed rate, locked in for something like 5 years. The fixed rate then was a little higher than we were paying, but we discussed it and decided it was worth the gamble.

A couple months after we signed up, the non-green basic rate went up. It's gone up a few more times since then.

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

All of our lights have been fluorescent for many years. I'm looking into LED fixtures; I understand there are some different color correction issues with LED from those with fluorescent. Last summer we replaced one of the two room air conditioners here with a more energy efficient one; we might look into replacing the other this year. At some point it would be nice to move to a more gas efficient car; that is going to have to wait, though, as other large expenses are in the way.

We have a ton of paper to recycle. On the other hand, I pull from standard trash whatever computers I can (and either give them away or set them up to work here; I hope at some point to get a small render farm going for CGI -- right now that's a space issue more than a technical one).

[knitmeapony.livejournal.com]

I've gone way green this year, fifty percent on purpose, fifty percent on necessity. I no longer have a car, and most times I don't even ride the bus, what with work so close. I buy locally, particularly food, and I've gone mostly vegetarian. My living space is smaller and much greener, and we have recycling here, though after watching Penn and Teller's Bullshit and doing a little research, all I'll recycle are cans.

[ailsaek.livejournal.com]

Hmm... All our light bulbs are CFLs already, we already use most of our trash paper & cardboard as kindling or mulch, and we're members of our local CSA. Next up, we're in the market for a hybrid car and at the next house we're planning on a much larger vegetable garden. 100 mile diet? How about the 100 yard diet? *grin* If the town allows, we plan on raising chickens, too.

[eiblyn.livejournal.com]

We've got to start kinda small but we already walk or use public transportation to get almost everywhere. We've been doing that for the last three months now and it seems to work really well. We make a conscious effort to be aware of how many lights are on and how much water we use (we currently don't have to pay for utilities so that can make it a bit hard to keep track of usage). We also started switch to more earth friendly cleaning products as the ones we have run out. One step at a time...

[bryanp.livejournal.com]

The Oscars have been political for years, so last night was no change at all.

That said, Melissa Etheridge does indeed rock. Her first album is still on rotation in my car set.

Thinking about it, there are still three incandescents in my house that I could replace with CF bulbs. One in the attic and two in the garage. Since those bulbs get turned on rarely (VERY rarely for the attic) I haven't bothered with them. I may do that today.

Other than that, I keep my car in good running order and recycle my aluminum and glass. I draw the line at low-flow shower heads though. Some things are just wrong.

[troubleinchina.livejournal.com]

I read an article once that talked about how much you can cut down your bills just by unplugging your appliances when you're not using them - they still pull on the electric current when they're off.

Living in Aus now, I just turn off all the plugs on my way to work in the morning.

[rmeidaking.livejournal.com]

We got a new washer (okay, the old one was 14 years old; it was time) and it really does use 1/3 the water of the old one. It's a Frigidaire front-loader and cost about the same as a similar top-loader would have cost. I figure it's saving us about 200 gallons of water a week, and that means over 10,000 gallons in a year.

[ifics.livejournal.com]

I have been recycling for many years. We live on a busy street, so if we want to be rid of something we can put it in the yard with a sign that says free. Things usually disappear with in a few hours.

I also drive slower on the freeway when I can to save on gas. I only do this when traffic is light enough so I wont cause backups.

[ellyssian.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm in the opening stages for planning an enviroscaping business focusing on woodlands and meadows, things natural and organic, and native plants - and maybe getting more people certified as a NWF Backyard Wildlife Habitat (http://www.enature.com/backyardwildlife/nwf_bwh_home.asp). The business itself won't really kick off until next year, but I'll be doing bits and pieces to work towards that goal in the next few months, and over the remainder of the year.

I'll also try to get out and help clear invasives and other such things at the Lehigh Gap Nature Center (http://www.lgnc.org/) and/or with The Nature Conservancy (http://www.nature.org/wherewework/northamerica/states/pennsylvania/volunteer/).

I'm switching over to fluorescent bulbs as the existing bulbs go. Unfortunately, both kinds of bulbs are a bit nasty in their own way: incandescents are hazardous waste because of lead; fluorescents are hazardous because of the mercury.

[drzarron.livejournal.com]

Been slowly replacing incan lights with CF's. Keeping the furnace and AC in excellent shape, along with the cars. Had the house super insulated. Turned down the water heater (try it, even a couple of degrees will show on your energy bill). We're big into reuse, many things get cannabilized for future projects, so less big trash. Plan errands out ahead of time, to keep the loop short and one run out while the car is warm saves over a lot of small cold start runs. Oh an in sink hot water tap. More energy efficient to deliver nearly boiling water, less than firing up the stove or the microwave. And turn the damn lights and electronics off when you leave a room.

[hyrkanian.livejournal.com]

We've been switching over all our lights to CF over the past years as the incandescents burn out. We recycle plastics and cardboard, etc., as the city of Durham is kind enough to send a truck 'round once a week to pick them up. But the big thing is my start-up business to grow captive-propagated marine inverts such as coral, anemones, etc., to reduce the wild-collected coral from ocean reefs.

[selenesue.livejournal.com]

That's interesting! Who are your buyers? Jewelry suppliers, who make coral beads?

[hyrkanian.livejournal.com]

Egads, no! Then they would be dead! But thanks for asking and giving me the chance to clarify. *Live* coral, etc., for marine aquariums. Buyers will be distributors that sell to fish stores, as well as some local fish stores.

[selenesue.livejournal.com]

In 2005, I moved from 10 miles away from work to under a mile. Woot! I use hardly any gasoline during the week and my Los Angeles commute is a breeze.

Smeg, I hate fluorescent lights though. I don't use them at home, but I have full length windows on the south and west of my apartment so as the days lengthen, I can live on natural light.

I'm improving my diet, going to Whole Foods market regularly, where they stock food items that support people and causes I care to support. And I bring my own bags and get a dime off a piece.

[kightp.livejournal.com]

Fluorescent bulbs are available in a "full-spectrum" color range that emulates daylight remarkably well. It took me some getting used to the cooler light temperature (standard incandescents are way up in the warm range of the visible light spectrum), but now that I have I'm finding them easier on my eyes, and a big boon for knitting and other color-related craft work.

[unclelumpy.livejournal.com]

I plan to run over anyone I hear do the "ManBearPig" or "I'm serial!" joke!

[rook543.livejournal.com]

I pledge to use more styrofoam! But all flourocarbon sprays! Get a car that gets 3 miles per gallon and runs on leaded gas! To burn my leaves with wild abandon, and to start my own experiments into converting all my power needs to coal or wood burning means....

If the planet is dying, then I say show some mercy and lets make it quick and painless! Like a lame horse...

[purpleranger.livejournal.com]

Your attitude is wonderfully refreshing.

[unclelumpy.livejournal.com]

The planet isn't going anywhere... WE are!

[kightp.livejournal.com]

I already recyle like crazy, have been replacing incandescents with fluorescents as the burn out (I think I'm at about 90 percent replaced), and drive a fuel-efficient car. I'm seriously considering going solar (yes, I know all about the controversy over this scheme, and am doing my homework before committing).

But the most important thing, at this juncture: I'm writing lots of honest-to-goodness pen-and-paper letters to my Congressional representatives and state lawmakers, urging their support of green legislation. Because unless we do something systemic, all our individual efforts won't be enough.

[momentrabbit.livejournal.com]

• Switching from incandescents to compact fluorescents - already have completely in the basement and over half the main floor, looking to hit 80% ideally.


• Soon our district, which already does curbside recycling (blue box & grey box), is going to implement a trial 'green box' for organic waste: we'll try it.


• Ah, the backyard. We're already using a downspout-fed rainwater barrel to supplement watering the back garden via ground-level irrigation drips - less evaporation, less using 'city' water. Two big changes planned for this year: a raised garden for veggies and salad-stuff, and a fruit tree or two. The former means less driving to markets and all the transportation matrix fuel costs involved there, and the latter - well, even if the fruit winds up squirrel food, the trees themselves will be an active carbon sink as they grow.

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

Been doin' it for years; living in Portland, Oregon makes it pretty easy, though if we were planning on keeping this house, we'd have to insulate. BTW, make sure you dispose of failed fluorescents properly--check with your local disposal services.

NEV

[alwosm.livejournal.com]

just about finished building a NEV. (for the non-cognoscenti- Neighborhood electric vehicle). This is mostly for my commute (~22 miles each way) but can be used for shopping

and then considering doing without the car.

The challenge: can I do it with Chicago winters. Issue - the ridiculous ice and snow season.

Wish me luck

[pickledcritter.livejournal.com]

We're switching to CFL bulbs as our incandescents give way and I just recently purchased a much higher gas mileage car (no hybrid - the cost vs the savings in gas plus the recalibrated EPA calculations just don't make hybrids attractive to me ATTM).

However, the biggest thing we're doing is reducing the amount of waste while reducing the amount of waist :).

[archiver-tim.livejournal.com]

I watched my city recycle truck this morning. Got to my driveway, emptied the bins, got back into the truck, revved it up (VAROOM), hit the brakes (SCREEEI), only to move half the length of the truck to the neighbors bins. He could have walked the 8 feet for planet earth.

[ann-totusek.livejournal.com]

I'm more focused on people than things (though I do recycle and we've also been cycling CF's to replace old incandescents). My big "save the cheerleader, save the world" project is not buying chocolate that I can't verify is produced in a slave-free way. If you haven't seen the movie "Amazing Grace," I highly recommend it. I've seen a lot of people on imdb and other movie sites ranting that it's just another "Come to Jesus" movie- but it isn't. It's a biopic of William Wilberforce, the MP who pushed the Abolition law through the Houses of Parliament (Commons) in 1807. Yes, there's religion in it, because Wilberforce was a religious man, and yes it's
Christianity because he was a Christian. The reason for the tie-in to the song is that one of the people who advised him was John Newton, the author of the song (I suspect that most of you know that he was a retired ship's captain who had captained slave ships) who was the leading evangelical Anglican clergyman at the time. On line resources you can look at yourselves regarding slavery and the chocolate industry's complicity in it can be found at: http://vision.ucsd.edu/~kbranson/stopchocolateslavery/goodchocolateproducts.html

There's also a campaign called "The Amazing Change" that was started by a high school student named Zach Hunter who has a heart for people trapped by the slave trade, and it's tied in with the movie.
http://www.amazingchange.com/
Have you ever read a story about the Underground Railroad and thought to yourself "If I had been alive then, I'd have been involved"? If so, here's your chance. It's not so dramatic, but it can still be effective.

Yes, buying slave free chocolate is more expensive, but hey, when you end up buying Dagobah chocolate because of it, how can a chocolate lover and SF fan really complain? And while giving up chocolate when you can't verify its provenance may seem like a miniscule thing to do in protest, remember that sugar boycotts were an active part of the Abolitionist movement both in the UK and the USA. Think about all the cheap chocolate that is consumed at conventions. What if all that business suddenly started going to companies that sold only "Fair Trade" chocolate? I dare ya...
For those of you who are animal lovers, you might also be interested to know that William Wilberforce founded the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals!


Other related links:
International Justice Mission- http://www.ijm.org
Child Voice International- http://www.childvoiceintl.org/

[anansi133.livejournal.com]

I'm switching from gasoline powered vehicularity to biodesiel.

And I'm phasing out the worst of my meat-eating habits.

Organic food will have to wait till I have a decent kitchen, though.

[gan-chan.livejournal.com]

Already did the CF lightbulbs thing, already did the hybrid car thing (needed a new car anyway, and the Prius is one sweet ride, lemme just tell you), already did the two-days-a-week-telecommuting thing (-120 miles per week on the roads), already did the 1-888-5-OPT-OUT thing to get off as many of those "you've been preapproved!" snail-spam lists as possible.

Next up is 'green tags' for electricity (my apartment complex does submetered power so I can't switch directly to the green juice), finding better options for paper recycling (landlord only does glass, aluminum, and cardboard), kill ing another head of the junk-mail hydra by getting on the Direct Marketing Association's solicitation opt-out list (https://www.dmaconsumers.org/cgi/offmailing), and eating less meat.

[nagasvoice.livejournal.com]

I have to edit a lot of accumulated information for a speech I'm making for Toastmasters, hopefully this week. It is supposed to be a persuasive speech to get people up and at 'em and doing something about what you're telling them.


After some false starts on other topics, I realized that I was far more hotly concerned with all the various issues surrounding global warming than anything else I could think of to talk about, and there is an amazing amount of official information out there to help us understand it and do something about it. Wikipedia has put together a major effort to provide complete and authoritiative articles on all the topics, for instance.
I found at least ten pages' worht of material tha tI could speak about, when I will only be using 3 to 4 pages ultimately.
I've posted the material I've gathered for the speech, in reasonably coherent order, with live links to the original sources of the stats I used, here:
http://nagasvoice.livejournal.com/160571.html#cutid1

There are many other possible sources in addition. I have not referenced any of the material associated with "An Inconvenient Truth," for example, as I figure that people are already pretty aware of that now. I did not reference the SciAm articles I've read over the past few years either, because they do logins/charge for viewing their website material.

Beyond that, we've already done the bulb-changing and the Energy-Star appliances, reducing our meat consumption in the diet, installing new dual-pane windows, getting an insulating matterss sack to enclose my waterbed (reduces heat loss out the bottom and sides), and improving the seal/fit around the wonkier doors in our house.

There's a few more things we could do which I'm hoping to get to as budget allows, such as buying a more efficient replacement for the old water heater. I'd also like to install solar energy cells, as we're in a climate that could do lots of it, but I've been waiting both for budget reasons and for better technology on the design of e-cells. It would be awkward to try to do solar water-heating with our layout, although it might be possible.

I'd also love to see better tech for LED lights, which is what I'd *like* to use for lighting my aquarium. If we can use LEDs for auto headlights, I don't see why we can't replace flourescents completely with those instead.
There'd be far less hazardous household waste and none of the low-level mercury waste problems you have on flourescent bulbs. And yes, fish tanks are an energy indulgence.

[siliconshaman.livejournal.com]

energy efficient lighting ... check
use public transport where possible ... check
eat locally produced foods ... check
recycle/freecycle goods ... check
eliminate human race ... uhh, still working on that one.

[marahsk.livejournal.com]

We've been using efficient bulbs and appliances for a few years now. We have a front load washer that uses less water. House is insulated, and we try to keep it as cold as we can cope with in the winter. We recycle cardboard, paper, glass, and aluminum. I have a small, fuel-efficient car.

I'm not getting rid of my car until the transporter is perfected, but I'm hoping to be able to afford a Prius next time around. I don't do well in heat, so the a/c stays. I try to make up for my a/c usage by being cold all winter.

We don't have children, so we're saving all the energy and garbage that they and their children would have used and produced.

Green Oscars? Highly doubtful.

[wolfger.livejournal.com]

Those did not look like flourescent lights or LEDs to me. Clicking on the link, they talk about how *we* can be environmentally conscious, but it doesn't say anything about what steps they actually took. I mean, I missed the red carpet parade, but did the stars show up in hybrid vehicles, or gas guzzling limos? That stage was blindingly bright with kilowatt sucking bulbs for the sake looking better on TV. Maybe they switched to recycled paper for the lists of nominees and "the envelope"? It's one thing to say "we're green now", but without saying exactly what you mean by that, and without any obvious evidence to support it, I call BS.

Trying for a li'l bit of greenness...

[psandusky.livejournal.com]

I make good use of my curbside recycling bin. :) The truck comes every two weeks, but since I live alone, I usually take a while to accrue enough recyclables to make it worth the stop. I save my bottles and cans at work in shopping bags, then take those bags to toss in the hopper when I get home. Next day, new shopping bag.

I'm also planning on getting a hold of a bunch of Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch cards to distribute on or around Earth Day. I have two venues in mind... I just hope they're received well (and I really wish I could be more confident about that).

[avt-tor.livejournal.com]

I buy a lot of trees. Every time I fly (which is a lot), I tick the checkbox for the "TerraPass" voucher. Six bucks for a short flight, $30 for my flight to Japan.

I already recycle, live in a row house, live within walking distance of my office (when they let me work there!), work in an information industry (no physical input or output), don't own a car, put out one bag of garbage every two weeks.