Now you can kiss the very air you breathe goodbye. Brasil has approved clear cutting of the rain forest to finally build that much fought over hydro-electric dam.

[www.treehugger.com]

I hope that all of you will turn your eye to real ways you can cut the electricity you use. If WE can't do it, how can we ever expect our power hungry neighbours to? This is a crisis guys, far beyond alfalfa I'm afraid.

I already do a lot in the house but here are two more I'll start today:
Hang up all the laundry to dry instead of only some of it.
No more cartoons/movies, we will read instead.
Candles at night instead of lamps.
Buy as little exotic stuff as possible (things from far away including tropical fruit.
Focus on crafts that can be done by hand with recycled material (I'll look for a treadle sewing machine to use instead of the electric one).
This year I'll use the dehydrator but will make sure it's full each time and use it for things I can avoid buying in the off season.

Here's the rest of our little effort:
Turn the heat down at night and when we leave the house
laundry only full loads and only after "peak hours" (9pm)
Very few electronics, everything on a power bar that gets switched off when not in use.
Recharge things (cell phone, batteries) only when totally discharged.
Walk and take the bus.
Minimal use of the stove.
Hot water heater at very low setting (enough for one half full tub at a time)
Minimal shopping and mostly buy second hand.
Shop at the green grocery instead of a big mart
We had a bike generator at the Sprout farm that we used to run the juicer sometimes. Wonder if we could rig something similar for our Vita-mix... will have to look into it because that's Really fun!

If we all work cooperatively together we CAN make a difference here. If not in actual power consumption then in setting an example of how it can be done. We can stir up some publicity, maybe get on the news... let's see what Greenpeace is doing. Take heart friends.

Coco,
Your an inspiration, but perhaps taking on too much responsibility. I wish I could spread that around to everyone in the country, perhaps the world. If they just did one thing on the list that would be something. What in your opinion would be the best thing for everyone to do? What would be the easiest? Although perhaps not the most effective?

I grew up with a hippy mama, these things are just second nature to me. She used to take the labels off of cans and put it into the kindling pile for lighting fires, then she'd take off both lids, put them inside the can and flatten it. This was before recycling, she did it to take up less space in the trash. I still do it, it takes up less space in the recycling and separates the paper from the tin.
We composted too, we still do that now. We put out very little actual garbage, I set out our can for collection twice monthly and that includes the neighbours trash as well.


Turning down the heat a degree or two, even more at night and when no one is home. Shutting off the lights. Using the car only when you really have to, carpooling, not idling. Wearing clothes more than once where possible and doing laundry in the off hours. Reducing time using electronics. These all seem like very simple and basic things to me.
Aside from that our biggest problem is over consumption, if people would just stop and think about what they are purchasing, if they really need it, if there is a greener alternative, we could all make an enormous impact in each of our daily lives.

The three R's are a good philosophy to follow. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. Unfortunately many people don't realize that each option is not equal to the others. The FIRST and most important is Reduce, the second most valuable is Reuse, the least useful is Recycle and it should be the last thing we think of when it comes to what we can do for the environment. It seems to be the only one that is popular with the masses though and that's a shame.

Id like to point out one thing, if you recharge batteries only when fully discharged (at least newer type rechargeable) your actually wasting a lot more, as first, charging them when they have a partial charge does not use more energy than letting them drain (unless your using the old style that have to discharge completely first, then recharge) and fully discharging the battery actually reduces the amount of times you can recharge it over its lifetime by more than half... so in the long run you will actually waste more, the rest all sounds awesome the bike generator idea I specifically like, that sounds like a lot of fun to me! you get a good rig set up, let me know how it works out and post a guide on here for everyone to be able to make their own

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Oh, mirror in the sky
What is love?
Can the child within my heart rise above?
Can I sail through the changing ocean tides?
Can I handle the seasons of my life?