turning green

the con ed bill arrived this week and LO, i rejoiced!

my electric usage was half — HALF! — what it had been this time last year, during a month where i didn’t even go out of town. i didn’t have to make drastic changes to get here, just got in the habit of turning not only the computer, but also the router (you ever feel how HOT those mac airport base stations get?) when i’m not using them. of not letting myself fall asleep reading in bed every night with the light on. (only sometimes.) replaced most of my incandescents with compact fluoros. (take THAT, john mccain.) i still have some regular bulbs, because i hate that fluorescent light with a passion, and if i had to look at myself in the bathroom mirror in eerie operating-roomlike blue light every morning, sooner or later you’d find me swinging from a rope.

am i as green as i could and should be? nah. for a while, my brother dated a woman who was off the electric grid entirely, ran her whole house off a solar-powered generator. she had all kinds of energy-efficient appliances that i’d never even heard of. have you ever seen an insulated refrigerator? i couldn’t even tell what it was until she showed me, and that fridge ran on less juice than a lightbulb. compared with that very gold standard of green, i am an omniverous energarian. so i don’t compare myself with her, generally, i compare my self of today with my selves of the past, and if i can point out incremental improvements on a regular basis, then i am on the right track. the con ed bill is a prime indicator in this process.

not everybody can live off the grid, cheerfully making all the little daily sacrifices and adjustments that involves. (i mean, this woman turned off the light if she stepped out of the room for a SECOND — like, you go to pee and you see there’s no toilet paper and you step over to the closet which is RIGHT there, not four feet away, to get some but you turn the bathroom light off for the micromoment it takes — i doubt she even thought about it, turning shit off had become a total reflex for her, something she would do in her sleep. her mastery of turning things off also worked, eventually, on my brother, but that’s another story.)

getting green, for us non-superhuman type folks, isn’t that hard, and isn’t limited to electricity. i recycle everything now, even envelopes, even the little roll of cardboard from inside the paper towels, the kind kids use as mini-megaphones.  i take totes to the supermarket and walk a couple blocks to bring the few plastic bags i end up with to the CVS recycling center. i flush only when necessary. i use revolving doors whenever possible unless i’m carrying something large and ridiculous. if you’re wondering what’s so green about revolving doors, it’s the way they prevent heat (or air conditioning) escaping from the building and reduce the amount of juice needed to keep the lobby comfy for the security guard who wants to see your ID before letting you inside.

this green thing is getting contagious — the first green billboard has just gone up in times square, powered entirely by solar and wind. i mean, a big ugly hulking neon thing that doesn’t even HAVE a plug attached to it. great news for the obscenity of light that is times square. you ever go there in the middle of a weeknight? like a tuesday-into-wednesday at around 3am? even the winos are asleep, but those glowing, throbbing, spinning, quick-cutting homages to capitalism just keep winking on and off, with nary an eye upon them. so bravo to the ricoh corporation on that.

and bravo to me on my incredible shrinking electric bill!

Recent Posts:

• getting bagged in harlem
• taking part in the 350 challenge…
• killing time
• shall we take an environment break?
• i had a dream

bookmark to: