Challenge Yourself - Earth Week 2009
Happy Earth Week! Today is the first day of Earth Week and events are planned around the country to help reduce our global footprint. Growing up in the Santa Cruz mountains made me a little cynical for Earth Day and Earth Week because we really should be doing our part every day, not just once a year.
But, I know it's hard to make changes and many places just don't have the same culture as California. Take a look at San Francisco for example. The government made a sweeping change not to allow plastic bags at any stores. Instead, they must use biodegradable bags made from corn, despite the additional costs to businesses.
While I'm not suggesting this is the best way to deal with global warming (I'm more of a free market capitalism kind of girl),
as an individual or as a family, there are some relatively easy changes you can make part of your routine that will have a big effect on our environment. Especially if our communities come together and take on these challenges.
My favorite website to help with this is CarbonRally. You can join and create a team to track your progress. I've committed to the following challenges this month:
- Sit, Click and Deliver - Shifting one purchase to online and avoiding a car trip to the store will reduce your CO2 emissions by 7.4 lbs
- Bring Your Own Bags - By re-using grocery bags, you will reduce your CO2 emissions a total of 6 lbs by the end of one month
- Setback Payback - Using a programmable thermostat for 1 month will eliminate 200 lbs of CO2 and save $32
There are many more challenges like communiting to work one day per week (I work from home so I do this every day!), using a low-energy dishwasher (check, just got one), and changing out your lightbulbs to CFL's (check again).
What challenges will you take?
