Energy jerk: leaving computer on 24/7

One of the articles on my nerdy MSNBC.com homepage caught my attention the other morning. (Yes, at work, my homepage is set to a respectable site, as opposed to the smut I enjoy in my free time.) “Are you an energy hogging jerk?” it asked, in big, bold letters. Intrigued,(“Hmm, am I a jerk and don’t even know it…?”) I clicked on it—and read about some interesting, everyday things that we are all probably guilty of—that are big-time energy sucks. Instead of writing a massive, epic, tome of a post right here and reviewing allll of them, I thought it might be interesting to share the items one by one, so that way I can add whatever personal insights I want to, without having to worry about getting too long and wordy. (You know how I like to include my personal anecdotes.)

So, without further ado, sign #1 that you are an Energy Consuming Jerk: leaving your computer on all the time.

Gulp.

At home and work, I am so guilty of this.( As are many of my family members and co-workers—which really doesn’t make my actions any better, and frankly just makes everything worse overall by increasing the amount of energy being wasted.) In the kitchen at my parents house, the computer is on 24/7. In my apartment, my roommates Apple is always on (can’t miss any possible incoming gmail chat IMs!). And maybe worst of all, only because its compounded by multiple people, our computers at work are almost never turned off at the end of the day. Ut oh…

“Let's face it: Booting up a computer eats time off the clock, an annoyance for everyone from deadline-pressed cubicle warriors to retirees eager to logon to the Eons social network. But that's no excuse to leave your computer up and running 24 hours a day – especially when power-saving options are built in to the machine.

Almost all computers come equipped with energy-saving sleep or standby modes, which can be set to automatically kick in when the computer is idle for awhile – say 20 minutes. Usually, a toggle of the mouse or tap on the keyboard is sufficient to snap the computer awake.
After a long nap, some computers will delve into an even-deeper energy-saving hibernation mode. But even then, the computer is still sipping electricity.

Energy experts recommend turning the computer off overnight and longish breaks in the day. Contrary to popular belief, this will not harm the computer's lifespan, noted Rogers energy-efficient jerk, noted John Rogers, a senior energy analyst with the Union of Concerned Scientists in Cambridge, Mass.”

Even though simply turning off a computer seems like such a small gesture to make, it oddly will be a significant habit to change. Yesterday afternoon when the clock struck 5pm, I took the time to close out of all my applications, and powered off my computer. At home I turned off my lap-top when I was done uploading some pics. Small gestures for sure, and yet I oddly felt better knowing that it all adds up, and it all helps...

Forrest to forests: Robin Wright Penn the Eco Mom

Loved her in Forrest Gump, and knew that was having lots of dramatic ish with hubby Sean Penn, but other than that... Robin Wright Penn was mostly off my radar. Until... I saw her smiling face in the pages of my new In Style magazine (my reading matter of choice, en route to Punta Cana). She smirked at me from her corner perch, and justifiably so—as she was the host of the soiree that page was dedicated to.

The event was featured on one of those fun party pages, with lots of pictures and quotes courtesy of the highest-profile celebs in attendance. Most likely I would have stopped and read this page regardless of what the event was about or whose face was at the top of the page, but the headline “Eco Mom Alliance charity event…” especially caught my eye.

At that point I wasn’t quite sure what an “eco mom” was (although I could make some educated guesses), but I was proud to see that Jenn-ay was so involved. (Or, at least involved enough to let the organization publicize that “she” was “hosting.”) Luckily for me, In Style magazine had a preemptive star-burst that held the key to all of my questions: “For more information, go to ecomom.com”

The Eco Mom Alliance was created with the idea in mind that throughout history, when a crisis occurred women have never been afraid to step up and do whatever needed to be done in order to protect their family. In light of current environmental issues happening across the world, it was decided that women needed to take collective action NOW in order to provide the best future possible for their immediate families and children everywhere. With her childrens’ future in mind, Robin Wright Penn looked at the current situation in much the same way I do, “I get way too overwhelmed if I focus on the larger global picture. But as a mom, I can do these small things and know I’m doing something positive and protective.” I’m not a mom (yet), but I whole-heartedly agree that making a bunch of little changes can add up, and especially like the idea of wanting to do something instead of feeling helpless and doing nothing.

Through the Eco Mom website, there are different points of interest for all sorts of moms, from coupons for organic products, "green" shopping tips, to charity sites in place to offer help to problems worldwide, and instructional videos where Robin Wright Penn herself demonstrates proper composting methods.

Props to Robin Wright Penn (and her publicist) for riding high through the scandals, maintaining her dignity, and re-emerging with such positivity on to greener pastures...

For a four day work week!

When I was little, I can remember older people saying all sorts of cryptic things that didn’t make sense, with one of the key offenders being the expression “youth is wasted on the young.”

At the time this was a befuddling and slightly offensive thing for someone to say. “How is youth wasted on the young?” I can remember thinking, somewhat hurt, “Weren’t you young once, too? Was that a waste also?”

Now that I’m a bit older, a tiny bit wiser, (and suddenly jealous of 18 year olds that have their whole life ahead of them— I’m 28)—I am starting to appreciate the meaning behind the expression. In short, it just is a way of lamenting how quickly life goes by…

In this vein, it has always seemed like a cruel joke that the majority of our adult lives are spent unhappily doing something other than what we want. Consider; out of the 7 days that make up a week, only 2 of those days are free to be lived however one chooses. You are told during your “prime” working years to work as hard as you can, so that you can save as much money as possible for your life after retirement—so that the period of your life when you are at your physical peak, you are slaving away to prepare for a time when your quality of life may not be so naturally easy. All of this makes it seem to me that the expression should really be something like, “youth is wasted at work.”

After being fortunate enough to schedule and experience such a thing in college, I often day-dream about how awesome it would be in the real world to have a standard work week that consisted of 4 long, hard days, with a 3 day weekend. As I have sadly accepted my “grown-up” status, this fantasy has been mentally filed away, next to the “Surprise! You’re really a princess!” fantasy file.

It goes to show that anything is possible though—as I recently caught wind of news that my idealized 4 day work week scenario was actually a reality, and happening —right now— in major cities across our great country.

Due to budget concerns, the powers that be in Salt Lake City, Utah decided to do something a little different in the hopes of achieving something drastically different. As of August 2008, all state offices have been closed every Friday, in order to cut down the utility expenses by 20%. (One day less a week that the buildings need to be run and maintained.)

As would be expected, the employees loved this. A survey conducted by Brigham Young's Lori Wadsworth found that 82 percent of employees want to keep the four-day workweek. Their pay wasn’t being affected—they were still working 40 hours a week, their previous 8 hour days were extended to 10 hour days—and now their free time was being increased exponentially with which they could exercise, spend time with their families, volunteer, and travel. Aside from improved day to day morale, the new scheduling also seemed to have a positive effect on overall employee health, with fewer instances of sick days. Because of the longer days, productivity actually increased—for instance, there were shorter waits at the DMV due to the longer hours.


Bettering the quality of life for a large group of people is a wonderful thing, but this 4 day plan was implemented for financial gain (always comes back to money), and it is estimated that the city was able to save 1.8 million dollars just from this new scheduling. Having the office buildings closed on Fridays allowed the city to save all of the money that would have gone into keeping the place operational; now there was an entire day less to provide electricity for, an entire day less that the work force needed to be commuting, causing wear and tear on the roads, and an entire day less that required cleaning/security/maintenance services. Since the employees really enjoyed their new schedule, they were doing everything they could to empower the initiative, going so far as to make sure every appliance from computer to coffee maker was unplugged before they left for their long weekends on Thursday night. While the money saved made the local government happy, it was this saving of resources that piqued the environmentalists’ curiosity, and after a year’s time, Scientific American came in to research the effects— good or bad— that this 4 day work week was having on the surrounding environment.

Although the language is nerdier than mine (in my opinion?), I’m not sure I can explain it better that the Scientific American reports:

An interim report released by the Utah state government in February projected a drop of at least 6,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually from Friday building shutdowns. If reductions in greenhouse gases from commuting are included, the state would check the generation of at least 12,000 metric tons of CO2—the equivalent of taking about 2,300 cars off the road for one year.

And that’s just one nerdy-expert take on the situation. Aaron Newton, a frequent contributor to the GroovyGreen blog, did some different math and came out other inspiring statistics:

Approximately 106 million Americans drive to work alone each day, an average of 16 miles each way. Cutting out one workday's worth of commuting would not only lower U.S. oil imports by 5 to 10 percent, it would also prevent thousands of traffic fatalities, as well as cut down on the costs of road maintenance, since people tend to drive less on weekends. And workers would see a real income boost by saving on gas.

The 4 day work week has been going on in Utah for almost exactly a year at this point, and due to the positive outcomes shown so far, other citiess like New York and Boulder are considering trying it out themselves. (Mayor Bloomberg could nix the stupid soda tax, and save money for his city while keeping them happy.)

From my personal experience, I think this would also have positive implications for the economy from a consumer stand-point. With more free time on their hands, people would be more apt to spend money on fun things, like traveling, shopping, and all sorts of other entertainment ventures. The government could save money, positively affect the environment, make their people happier and more productive, while increasing cash flow into the economy.



Reviewing all of the facts pertaining to a 4 day work week, I can't help but wonder if I am being naive, or biased? Does my personal inclination for this prevent me from seeing the down-side? Clearly not every business could afford to adapt this new 4 day schedule, as restaurants, stores, and other service related industries would have to be open to serve the people who were now off from work, but perhaps the 4 day work weeks could just be staggered a bit (the way days off are now), and the people in those industries would take Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday off, since the majority of their clientele would be working on those days anyway.



I'm going to hold out hope that this practice will slowly but surely become a more wide-spread practice, so that we can have more freedom to enjoy more of what life has to offer.

Properly disposing evidence of eating out(side)

The other night was one those idyllic beautiful summer evenings; it was just the right amount of warm outside (not too hot or humid) with a deliciously teasing breeze that kept the bugs away while at the same time soothing our sun-kissed skin. To make the most of these advantageous circumstance, the fam decided to barbecue and eat outdoors. Some extra people were joining our usual group of seven, and while setting the pleasantly crowded table it was noted that there were not enough clean plates to set a place for everyone.

“So what?” my sister said. “Let’s just use plastic, and then we can just throw ‘em out when we’re done with ‘em, and have less clean-up.”

The eco-alarms in my brain started going off at full-intensity.

*****UNECESSARY*WASTE*ABOUT*TO*OCCUR*******

I started to say something in protest, and my sister, picking up on my obviously agitated body language, was quick to point out—“Kelly, they’ve already been purchased. We already have them. They’re going to get used at some point… might as well be tonight.”

My mother punctuated my sister’s statement with a look that said the argument, if it can even be called that, considering zero words left my mouth, was settled. (Apparently my family is really into non-verbal communication? At least they use something sparingly.)

Standing exactly where I was when I first caught wind of this convo, a mental montage of the future the plastic plates were going to face flashed behind my eyelids. Mental images of tons of pink plastic plates, with gobs of potato salad and baked beans still clinging to their shiny surfaces, getting shoved into a trash bag, which would eventually go and find its way to a landfill, and then sit decomposing for the next thousand years or so, all the while leaching toxins galore, and occupying precious landfill real-estate so that another one would have to created that much sooner… ugh.

This lead me down a slippery mental slope, because if my family –with an outspoken environmental police-officer on the premises (me!)—was guilty of going the easy and wasteful route when it came to outdoor dining, it hurt to think about how many other people were doing the exact same thing, and how much wasted waste was being created. The thought process was scaring me more than this place.

As I sat at the table and proudly ate off my china plate (only plastic for this girl is an AmEx), I sadly tried to trouble-shoot the scenario, and figure out alternative, more eco-viable solutions, before it dawned on me: there already are freaking tons of better options in place for these sorts of scenarios.

1. Paper plates. Hello Green family! *News Flash* These are probably cheaper than plastic, and won’t irk me (or Mother Nature) nearly as much due their organic origins and quicker disintegration time.

2. Reusable plastic plates. Also super cheap, and available at every retail vendor imaginable during the summer months. (Seriously, you don’t just have to go to a place that would generally sell table-ware, over the summer you can find cheap plastic plates at hardware stores, drugstores, supermarkets, Victoria’s Secret*… ) For example, Walmart is currently selling a 38 piece dishwasher safe set for $19, which breaks down to 50 cents apiece-- for dinnerware you can use over and over indefinitely.

3. Regular plates. I mean, when did the old fashioned, rustic activity of grilling meat become so fancy so as to require its own set of dinnerware? A table outdoors that was set the same way as it would be indoors would be visually pleasing, while leading to no unnecessary waste, saving money by not purchasing alternate plates, and helping to keep an American past-time in its proper pure perspective.

4. The combination of 1,2, and 3 in one plate: OneHundredDegree’s reusable plastic plates that look like the throw-away paper variety. Not the cheapest route to go ($16 for set of 4), but they are cute, kitschy, and eco-tastic. These plates look like ye olde picnic paper plates we fondly recall from our childhoods—but, surprise! They’re really sturdy melamine in disguise! Machine washable, long-lasting, and outdoor eating inspired, these also fit the bill for replacing throw-away plastic plates.

In defense of my sister, she was right—the plastic plates in our house had obviously already been purchased, and were bound to be used at some point. The mistake occurred long ago, wherever and whenever the original point of purchase transpired. After sitting down and reviewing these fool-proof alternatives with her, hopefully my family (and yours too!) will not make such a silly dinner blunder again.


*Just kidding with this one, although they don’t sell plates, you can absolutely go here to purchase as many plasticized cups as you want. (Get it? You know how you can tell when a joke’s funny? When you have to use asterisks and parentheses to explain how funny it is.)

Kelly loves green roofies

When I was a little girl, in a pre-Stephenie Meyers and J.K. Rowling literary environment, I loved, loved, loved Laura Ingalls Wilder and all of the books in her “Little House on the Prairie” series. It’s strange in contrast to today’s popular children series, but somehow the old-fashioned, hands-on adventures that the Ingalls girls had were every bit as magical and imagination capturing as the exploits of Harry Potter, Bella, and Edward.

I devoured those “Little House” books a long time ago, and although details from each book are a bit hazy and blurred together in my mind now, (note to self—rereading these books could make excellent beach fare?) I can still vividly recall the mental images I concocted during the time when the entire family dug out the insides of a hill, and made it their home. (Frustratingly, I can’t even remember which book this occurred in??) My faulty memory fondly recalls that on one side of the hill they installed a glass window, and on the side of the hill, they installed one of those doors where the top and bottom can open independently of each other, so they could air it out when it was nice outside. This little hole in the hill home was described (or at least, this is how I remember it) as being so discreet, that unless you knew the home was in there, it was quite possible to pass by that hill and have no idea an entire family lived inside. (Additional non-sequitur to self—house in hill would be great in case of zombie outbreak.)

At age 9, the idea of making a livable habitat in the dirt was so cool that I would have traded (in a heartbeat) my air-conditioned, indoor-plumbing, electricity powered, 5-bedroom home to have instead lived in that hillside domicile with the Ingalls.

Now that I’m a bit more grown-up, and more jaded/ spoiled/realistic, I can fully appreciate the modern luxuries of home—and rustic hillside dwelling does not seem like the sparkling, shiny idea that it once was. However, thanks to very creative and practical green thinking, it is now possible to enjoy all of the modern-day conveniences while allowing nature to be part and parcel of your house-- with a “living roof”.

Basically, a “living roof” is when there is purposely plant life thriving on top of a building. There is a wide spectrum of “living roofs”, ranging from little garden roofs, to things like this:

Besides an immense love for all things “Little House on the Prairie,” there are a ton of benefits to going “green” roof side.

The soil and vegetation provide great insulation; and can save a lot of heating and cooling energy. In the winter, these roofs absorb the heat from the sun and help keep the buildings they are on top of warmer. In the summer the living roof again provides better insulation and keeps the cool air inside, while the roof itself remains cooler than a regular roof, all the while creating shade.

By creating extra landscape, a living roof provides more living space for all sorts of creatures. Especially beneficial in congested urban areas, these roofs provide easy places for people to enjoy time outdoors. Local wildlife benefits also; as birds, squirrels, etc., will have new places to explore and thrive in.

From a more practical (i.e. boy) standpoint, you get more bang for your buck with a living roof too, as they last longer than regular roofs. A living roof blocks UV rays, and prevents extreme surface temperature fluctuations, which are main causes for regular roofing materials to deteriorate.

Living roofs also improve the local air quality, as the increase in plant life purifies the air better by absorbing more pollutants from cars, pollen, and dust. Also, because the soil can retain 65-100% of rainwater, some floodings can be prevented by the decrease of local water saturation.


Last, but least, they look so cool-- imagine having a permanent vase of flowers decorating the top of your house? It would give you a visual kick-start every time you looked at it. Since this is kind of a newish practice, green roofing companies are still playing around with which plant varieties work the best for roof purposes, but some people have successfully grown huge Christmas trees on their houses, and some people have successfully had prosperous vegetable gardens growing on their roofs. (Love that idea—so, so green!) Also, since the idea of making use of a roof is now open for interpretation, people are thinking of all sorts of ways to make the most of the space. Some innovators are incorporating solar panels into their living roofs, and people are really thinking outside the box (house?) in order to maximize that once wasted space's green potential. To that I say, kudos!

Happily, this trend is catching on, and respected, well-funded universities such as Penn State, North Carolina State, and Michigan State are all doing substantial research on green roofing, and are in the midst of incorporating large scale green roofs throughout their campuses. Penn State already has multiple buildings with green roofs, and has many more planned for the future in order to coincide with their goal to “green” the campus-- such as the building pictured, which is fittingly to be their new Center for Green Roof Research.

With all of this green, living roof activity going on, it could be open for interpretation when someone says they can't wait to hear the pitter patter of little feet heard from above…