Reduced Energy, Increased Light

We had a thought-provoking session after meeting for worship last week. Karen Street has been facilitating monthly sessions on climate change. At the latest session, those of us who had turned in at least some data got individual printouts that showed our personal carbon emissions. It also compared us with the average person in meeting, in the Bay Area, in California, and in the US. We spent some time considering if we could individually commit to reducing our emissions by 10%, and what sort of minute we'd like to see proposed at Pacific Yearly Meeting.

I find committing to 10% reduction to be problematic, in that I have no idea what numeric impact my actions would make. For me, committing to specific, useful actions makes more sense. I'm writing about these in part to keep myself accountable. It's so easy to let things slip. I also hope that I'm not alone, that there's a community of folk somewhere in the middle between the environmentally pure and the environmentally, er, disinterested, and that we can help each other out.

So, what I am committed to continuing or starting:
Reduced home energy use. This is to be accomplished by turning things off when I'm not using them (I really should be better at this than I am), taking short showers rather than ones that drain the hot water tank, and hanging the wash during the warmer months. In the winter, I wear a lot of clothes to delay putting on the heat as long as I can. And it's a nice incentive to think that not only is reading better for my brain than TV, but it uses less energy! I'm not saying I'm giving up TV. I like TV. It enables me to get a lot of knitting done. But I'm trying to be a bit more mindful about flipping on the tube.

A minimum of one car-free day a week. I've been doing this for a while now. If I don't manage one week, I try to make it up the next. This should include taking the bus to meeting, but I am not managing to get out of the house early enough these days. This is probably a sign that I am too busy.

Increased carpooling. Now that I have a Prius, I volunteer for carpool driving duty a lot more than I used to. My goal for the next school year is to carpool at least once a week to work. I also plan to start a work contact list to facilitate both carpooling and communication in general.

Reduced air travel. I typically take one or two East coast round-trips a year, plus one or two shorter trips. I'm not saying I won't fly again, but I plan to do most of my travel by Amtrak. If I can't manage round trip on the train, I'll at least aim for it in one direction.

More thoughtful consumption. This is the hardest area for me. I am definitely not a plain Friend. I love new clothes, I adore shopping, I like new toys. I really do. I have a hard time separating frugality from deprivation, so I tend to alternate brief periods of tightfistedness with longer bouts of mindless spending. I rarely have a clue about how much is enough. I'm trying to retrain myself, both for economic and environmental reasons. I try to do most of my grocery shopping at the farmer's market, and limit my trips to Trader Joe's to once a month. I throw away the clothing catalogs after I've looked at them. If there's something I really want, it's there online. I try to only see movies in theaters and eat meals out with friends. I enjoy free "shopping sprees" at the library and at Children's Book Project (free books for kids at my school!).