An Inconvenient Truth

As surprising as it is we didn’t watch this movie until last night. I just placed a hold request for the book at the library. I thought the movie was well done. It didn’t change my opinion at all, since I already accepted the facts of global warming. It did serve as a good reminder to take action. I went to climatecrisis.net after watching the movie to see what was on the website. We’ve already done quite a lot which reduces our carbon output.

1. Replace a regular incandescent light bulb with a compact fluorescent light bulb (cfl). We did this many years ago with all of our lights. Plus we turn the lights off when they aren’t being used.
2. Move your thermostat down 2° in winter and up 2° in summer. We don’t really have a thermostat, just in-wall electric heaters which we try to use as little as possible.
3. Clean or replace filters on your furnace and air conditioner. The apartment doesn’t have either a furnace or air conditioner.
4. Install a programmable thermostat. Again, no thermostat, but we don’t use the heaters at night.
5. Choose energy efficient appliances when making new purchases. Something to consider, or better yet, how about non-electric appliances? Our grain mill is a good example
6. Wrap your water heater in an insulation blanket. The apartment complex did this before we moved in.
7. Use less hot water. We do wash clothes on cold generally.
8. Use a clothesline instead of a dryer whenever possible. When we eventually move out of the apartment this is certainly something we’ll do.
9. Turn off electronic devices you’re not using. We do this but I need to be better about turning off the computer on my days off (it is off when I’m at work).
10. Unplug electronics from the wall when you’re not using them. We do this, or have them plugged into power strips that we can turn off.
11. Only run your dishwasher when there’s a full load and use the energy-saving setting. We do run full loads but I’m sure there are more energy-efficient machines.
12. Insulate and weatherize your home. Certainly when we build our small home in the country we plan to have it well insulated and energy efficient.
13. Be sure you’re recycling at home. Here’s something we could really work on. The apartment only recycles cardboard but we could do this on our own.
14. Buy recycled paper products. We could do better in this area as well, although we do buy some.
15. Plant a tree. On our land (when we have land) we plan to manage our woodlot and plant lots of things, not just trees.
16. Get a home energy audit. Not something we can do now, but we do plan to build an off-grid energy-efficient homestead.
17. Switch to green power. This is something to look into with our power company. I just tried to access my account on their website but the account features are down. I’ll have to go back.
18. Buy locally grown and produced foods. We don’t do this quite as much as we should. In the past we’ve gotten produce from a CSA and the Farmers’ Market but we should make more effort in this direction. We grow what we can on our little porch. Once we move to our own place we plan to grow/raise most of our own food.
19. Buy fresh foods instead of frozen. We don’t buy much frozen food.
20. Seek out and support local farmers markets. (They could have combined this with the previous tip).
21. Buy organic foods as much as possible. We do buy some organic foods, and as we move towards self-sufficiency we’ll be producing our food in a natural fashion.
22. Avoid heavily packaged products. We could improve this if we ordered less online since those purchases are boxed up, not to mention cutting down on the transportation impact.
23. Eat less meat. We eat very little beef, mostly chicken, although we could reduce our meat consumption.
24. Reduce the number of miles you drive by walking, biking, carpooling or taking mass transit wherever possible. Until 34 years of age all we did was walk, bike or take mass transit since we didn’t own a car. In the last two years since buying a car we’ve put about 5,000 miles on the car. We don’t drive much and I’d still like to decrease it.
25. Start a carpool with your coworkers or classmates. (see previous item).
26. Keep your car tuned up. Just had that done a month ago.
27. Check your tires weekly to make sure they’re properly inflated. Tires are good.
28. When it is time for a new car, choose a more fuel efficient vehicle. We have a 1998 Volkswagen New Beetle, manual transmission, diesel which we run on biodiesel, which drastically cuts greenhouse gas emissions.
29. Try car sharing. It’s a good idea, but probably not something we’re going to try at the moment.
30. Try telecommuting from home. This is the goal. Eventually I want to be able to work from home — if my writing takes off, or we start a home-based business once we have our property.
31. Fly less. How about almost never? The most I flew was getting my masters degree since the residency requirement was in Pennsylvania. Otherwise we just don’t fly.

Wow, that’s quite the list. I also used the site’s carbon calculator which gave us a much smaller than average carbon footprint. I think that’s true. Eventually I hope we’ll do even better but our current location limits what we can do. We can’t really live off-grid in the apartment or produce most of our food. Someday, though, we hope to change that.

I want to add something else that isn’t on the list but should be: Solar Cooking. We’ve used it some and hope to expand our use.

I thought the movie should take into account peak oil. Many of the charts shown in the movie projected fifty years out with the same sort of growth we’ve been seeing — but our fossil fuels are not going to last that long at the same prices. All of the things Gore suggested to take action are good ideas — and like the list above — things people can and should do. As the price of oil rises and production declines more and more of those things will be attractive to people. The trouble comes, of course, if people wait too long to respond. It’s as if we’re speeding towards a cliff which Gore is pointing out to us but no one is listening. Before we can get to the cliff, however, we have to watch out for the wall across the road. If we brake and slow down we can stop the car and get out and avoid crashing into the wall. We won’t have to worry about the cliff. Of course the alternative could happen. We crash through the wall with severe injuries and have too much momentum to avoid the cliff…