2008 – A Green Year in Review
A Transformation Begins to Take Shape…
On December 31st, 2007, I wound down a quite New Year’s Eve after the family went to bed sitting at my computer. I had decided to start a blog to chronicle my efforts to “go green” in central Illinois. Over the course of 2007, I had steadily gained momentum in a gradual transformation to a greener life. I had dabbled in recycling in the past but was ready to get serious. I knew that improving my home’s efficiency would save money on energy bills and do my small part in reducing my family’s impact on climate change. I knew that there were water shortages around the world and even in our own prosperous country. I also knew that reducing our exposure to toxins in food and personal care products could lead to improved health for my entire family. With all of that in mind, I was ready to get serious about going green.
By choosing to document the transformation on a blog, it served several purposes. First of all, the process of writing and organizing the blog doubles as a learning vehicle for going green. I tend to learn better when I dig in, get my hands dirty, and then writing about the journey. Since the blogosphere tends to be an interactive medium, I wanted to use the community of bloggers to help through certain obstacles. To many, going green may seem to be a hobby or even an idealistic crusade. However, the potential health benefits, savings to my pocketbook, and the burden of mitigating climate change bring a sense of urgency such that this “green transformation” is both a labor of love AND necessity.
During the course of my research, I came across a quote from Gandhi: “be the change you want to see in the world.” It resonated perfectly with my desire to see changes in the health of my family, to see central Illinois join communities around the nation who are being to adopt green economic strategies, to see the United States takes the position as world leader in offsetting global warming, and – more personally – to be more than what I have become. What defines a person more – what they say or what they do? For me, it is time to “do.”
Two Blogs for the Price of One
When I initially set up the blog on New Year’s Eve of 2007, I was intent that I wouldn’t announce the formation of it until I had come content. So many blogs are “here today and gone tomorrow.” I knew this would not be the case and wanted to wait until I has enough substance before presenting a version for my friends and family to see. Meanwhile, the number of visitors steadily grew over the course of the year as content was added and appearing in search engines such as google and yahoo!. Hence, there are more strangers that have seen the blog than the people I actually know.
What I could not have predicted when I Green Transformation began is that there would be a sister blog as well. During my “Earth Day” vacation last April, I met with members of the local Sierra Club who had set up a separate group dedicated specifically to global warming issues. I began attending the monthly meetings, was excited about the work that was going on, and eventually took on the initative to starting a web site for the group. While I am in no way an expert in web site design, the use of the free wordpress blogging site allowed me to design and post with relative ease.
www.greentransformation.wordpress.com
www.gwsolutionsgroup.com
An Environmental Education
I spent much of 2008 soaking in as much information as I could about the environment and going green. I poured through countless magazines to read green articles, green issues, and green periodicals. Time. Newsweek. Sierra. Waterkeeper. Mother Earth News. Wired. Natural Home. And on and on. As a bookseller by trade, my library of green books multiplied over the year. I know have a healthy reference library of green tips, concepts, and green science including Hot, Flat, and Crowded by Thomas Friedman, Cradle to Cradle by William McDonough and Michael Braungart, Living Like Ed by Ed Begley, Jr, and The Weather Makers by Tim Flannery.
Because of my 50 minute commute to work every day, I discovered that it was an ideal time to use listening to podcasts. Through iTunes, I have been able to keep up with the free podcasts such as
- 40 episodes of NPR’s weekly Environment Report Podcast (averaging 15 minutes each)
- 39 sessions of Public Radio International’s Living on Earth (52 minutes each)
- 76 episodes of GreenLivingIdeas.com’s GreenTalk Radio (avg 20 minutes)
- 30 Sierra Club Radio podcasts (27 min each)
- 30 episodes of Make-It-Green Girl (avg 7 min)
- and many more
As if the books, magazines, and podcasts weren’t enough to keep me busy, I also watched many green shows on cable television. I was enthralled with Greensburg, the documentary of the rebuilding of the tornado-ravaged city of Greensburg, Kansas. I was fascinated by home rennovation shows like Greenovate and Renovation Nation. I kept with the environmental news with programs like Bob Woodruff’s FocusEarth that as produced for the Planet Green cable channel by ABC News as well as the Weather Channel’s Forecast Earth. I watched documentaries like Eco-Tech from the Science Channel, Energy War (featuring Thomas Friedman) on the Sundance Channel, and Human Footprint on National Geographic.
Through all of this mass education efforts, my first recommendation for anyone is to watch the Sundance Channel’s Big Ideas for a Small Planet. It is a fantastic show that features people and companies that are doing things now to help the planet. Each 30 minute episode focuses on new approaches on topics like food, fuel, and even fashion. While the burden of climate change can feel overwhelming and the level of societal change necessary to fend off the worst impacts can seem futile, this show brings hope where it is needed most. Change is happening. Right now. All of the United States and all over the world. People are working on and implementing their big ideas for our small planet. Thank you, Sundance.
Accomplishments for 2008
As you tour this web site, you will see a lot of projects I have been working on in the past year. Some of them have already been implemented successfully but many are a work in progress. While I have not yet added more insulation to my attic and walls, my attention to reducing electriciy usage has reduced my utilties bills! I look forward to getting a new utility bill from AmerenCILCO each month. For 7 consecutive months now, my monthly electric bill has been less than the same month of the previous year. I have accomplished this by keeping my thermostat at 68 degrees in the winter and 74 degrees in the summer, by replacing over 90% of my light bulbs in the house with compact fluorescents (CFLs), and by keeping my computer and television systems completely turned off through a power strip.
I am proud of the fact that we build and installed a raised bed for an organic vegetable garden and that we have begun composting, but both are a work in progress. Our divided attention at home resulted in a low yield from the garden, and composting in the bin outside takes a lot longer than I was expecting. That being said, we are as committed as ever to the garden and have big plans for the coming year.
Stay in touch with this blog and I will keep you posted. Better yet, subscribe to the blog from the column on the right and you will received an email each time I submit a new post.
Take care,
Todd
