A few months ago, I had back surgery and my mother came to take care of my kids for a week while I was recovering. Funny story- as soon as I got home from the hospital, she didn’t put me to bed and feed me chicken soup like a nice, normal mother would. No, I think the first thing she said to me was, “This house is lit up like a Christmas tree! What must your electric bill be?! Why haven’t you gotten LED lightbulbs yet??”
You see, my mother is a true climate warrior, and I can only aspire to be half the force that she is. She lives in a net zero house, she started a community solar field in her town to provide the option of solar energy for her friends and neighbors, she goes to protests regularly, and she works tirelessly on political campaigns to elect officials who will advocate for the climate. Oh, did I mention she’s 81?
OK, back to the lightbulbs – I told her our family runs around like chickens with our heads cut off most of the time and I hadn’t gotten around to it. It was too confusing – there are so many different kinds, and so many of them are weird – they don’t turn on right away, or the light looks like aliens have landed in my kitchen.
So she very kindly made up a little chart for my husband and soon boxes of lightbulbs from Amazon were appearing on our porch on a daily basis. Voila! It was easy, and since we made the switch we’ve consistently saved about 50 bucks a month on our electric bill.
This is truly one of the easiest things you can do, it saves you money, and makes you feel like you’ve done something. To help you make the switch if you haven’t yet, here’s my mom’s chart:
A few other easy ways to do your part include Meatless Mondays, walking or biking instead of driving, and a big one – not idling your car!!!
Meatless Mondays are helpful because of cow farts. Seriously – a cow’s digestion issues, along with methane emissions from natural gas operations and landfills, are actually the second largest source of greenhouse emissions. This is because methane, which is what comes out of a cow’s hind end, is 25 times as bad for the environment as CO2 because it’s more efficient at trapping radiation.
Wow, who knew, right? So, Meatless Mondays, at a minimum. They also have the extra benefit of a great teachable dinner table moment to show our kids that we can all do our part and make a difference.
Walking or biking vs. driving is a no-brainer, although a tough one for us moms. So we do what we can, but don’t beat yourself up because you’re a glorified taxi driver – it’s a true, sad fact of modern parenting.
More important, and much more frequently an issue, is the idling. I don’t know how many times I see moms waiting for their kids in the car with the engine idling. Lots of people just don’t realize how bad this is. Shutting your car off if you’re going to be sitting there for more than 10 seconds saves gas even with restarting, but if you leave it idling, you’re putting just as much CO2 out there as you would if your car was moving.
According to the Environmental Defense Fund, “For every 10 minutes your engine is off, you’ll prevent one pound of carbon dioxide from being released. An Environmental Defense Fund report shows that in New York City alone, idling cars and trucks produce 130,000 tons of carbon dioxide each year. To offset this amount of global warming pollution, we would need to plant an area the size of Manhattan with trees every single year.”
My mom, the awesome activist
So, there you go. Short of buying an electric vehicle, which is awesome if you can afford it, these are some other easy ways for us to do our part and model good environmental caretaking to our kids.
Not to be a downer, but if you read my Climate Change Math post, you’ll realize that, frankly, what we do at home hardly matters in the face of big oil like Exxon. But we can’t just give up. These are small ways that do make a difference, possibly more because it sets a good example for our kids and keeps our mind on the importance of the issue, but whatever – we just have to do them because if we don’t, we’ll just be complacently sitting here waiting for the planet to go up in flames. Sorry… deep breaths…
Now, on to advocacy – time to make your signs and get out there! Read my advocacy post to see how to get involved.
Follow me on twitter for updates about rallies and other actions we can take locally.
