Environment-abilities

What are you doing for the environment. Or maybe a better question would be what are you doing to hurt it? I've found that I do a little of both. But I probably hurt it more than help it. I'm not willing to only take a 5 min shower. I can't even do my basic shaving maintenance in that time frame. I did however, replace most of the bulb in my house with the energy efficient ones. We don't water our lawn. Poor thing, it looks hideous. But it just has to wait on Mother Nature. The hubby drives '98 Honda Civic with 300,000 miles on it that still gets 33 mpg in the city! I drive a GAS GUZZLING Honda Odyssey that doesn't even get the 22 mpg that was stated on the sticker when we bought it. It's more like 15 mpg in the city. Ridiculous!!!

Actually that really pisses me off. Because like many others, we really do have a need for the van since we have 3 kids in carseats. ** For those who question this... go get 3 carseats. Make 2 of them a "5 pt harness" (the kind with the internal harness) and 1 of them a "BPB - Belt Positioning Booster" (the kind that uses the lap & shoulder belt of the car). Now, go make them fit in the backseat of your car. It's not as easy as it seems like it would be. For the most part, sedans do not easily accomodate this. Which is why you see so many vans and SUV's on the road. We were able to achieve it with our 2002 Passat Wagon. But it was tight. Plus, we had to take two cars whenever when went on vacation with the dogs or when my niece & nephew come to stay for a week.


Getting back to the van though. When we decided to buy a van, we test drove and looked at MPG ratings of different makes. We loved the Honda and it had a MPG rating on the sticker that we could live with. But then we actually owned it and got NO WHERE NEAR what the sticker stated. We were furious. But like thousands of other drives, there was nothing we could do short of selling it. That left us back to square one. BTW... we later found out that pretty much every van and suv on the market has a MPG rating sticker that never comes close to what it claims. Buyer beware and note that you will pay more for gas that what you are led tobelieve.
So, we drive our gas guzzling van because we really don't have many other options. Strike 1 against the environment. I try to balance this by not driving often. At home, I conserve energy like crazy. I never leave lights turned on. I have my thermostat set to 79 in the dead of summer. I keep the ceiling fans on to make sure the air is constantly circulated. I only run the dishwasher when it's full. I have it on the water miser setting. I turn my computers off at night. I no longer leave my cell phone charger plugged in. I do laundry in large loads to conserve water. I also took the plunge and got a front loading washer that uses SO much less water. Again.. we don't water the lawns (unless it's been weeks since we've had rain.) I recycle as much as I can. Our local municipality only recycles pastics with the code from 1-3. You'd be surprised how many things are labled as 4-7. I still have a tendency to throw paper in the trash instead of setting it aside to go in the recycling bin. I still have a long ways to go. Including the shower. But the point is, I'm trying.

I came across a great short film about trying to congress to mandate cleaner running cars and clean fuels. It's quite a funny and comical way of getting the point across. At the end, there is a petition. If you are moved at all, sign the petition. I did.
http://www.cleanmyride.org/