Be enviro today...

...just do it interestingly. Its: And so half the blogs I read are full of this. My problem is that none of this is new. When I was in a Boy Scout troop in the early 80s we were still encouraged to toss trash out the window. I did not, which was making something of a stand, believe it or not, though it was in the wind that maybe pouring used motor oil on fish was a bad thing. Several posts on different blogs and forums (fora?) in the last few weeks are admonishing us to turn off computers when not in use. Fine. As soon as I am not using one I'll get right on that. I wonder how many of these people have their air conditioning on though? I don't.

Okay, the one that really grates on me is "try switching to CFLs." Look at the light to the right. Its a bulky, odd, modular compact fluorescent. Why so weird? Cause its one of a batch I bought 19 years ago! Westlake sold scads of these ABCO bases and tubes back then even. Good luck finding them anywhere else in 1988. Yes, they do work. A different model I had back then was on continuously (barring power outages) for about 15 years. Do we universally use them? No. Don't work well with dimmers, and we use a lot of dimmers for both the atmosphere we want to project and to reduce consumption. Its trivially easy to figure out how much power lights use a different current levels. Especially with a meter, but you can guess about levels of dimming also.

No that note, enough griping. To get in the spirit of the day, I'll be productive. Look at the triangle of arrows. Reduce is done with turning off stuff, or using lower-consumption items, or just consuming less crap. Its really not a sacrifice to not take a plastic bag when buying just a single item. Reducing the total energy costs by using local products is now starting to become pseudo-plausible. Recycle is the inappropriate over-branded one. See, its even on the recycling bin. Everyone knows what's involved in this, but its really not the one and only answer. Remanufacturing items (like metals or paper) is relatively wasteful still. My favorite is reuse. Keep that scrap lumber and make a bird house. Turn leaves into much for your garden bed. Keep food containers and use them over (even if just for the shop or garden). But don't forget that even things like selling your old items on eBay (or buying someone else's) to get some last scrap of value instead of throwing them away, are in the right mindset.