I have a fairly low carbon emission score. I don't own a car, use public transportation and walk most places, recycle as much as I can, bug others about recycling (I yelled at my friend for not recycling when he was sitting right in front of a recycling bin), unplug my appliances unless in use, use energy conserving light bulbs, plus the apartment building I live in is mostly solar powered.
I felt pretty proud of the fact that I was able to greatly reduce my ecological footprint through very little inconvenience to my daily life, until I was cleaning out my school notebooks in preparation for the new semester. I have a huuuuuge stack of papers, mostly journal articles, that I printed out for reading and use in class. I printed a bunch of them double sided and ended up recycling those (because I'm not kidding myself - I'll never read them again plus I can find them online if I do decide to torture myself), but I still have a two inch stack of one sided paper. I'm saving them to use as scrap paper, but I'll probably be graduating from here before I ever, ever, go through the whole stack.
While looking at that huge stack of paper, I decided that I'm going to read my articles online from now on because it saves paper and saves me the 7 cent cost of printing it out. It'll be hard to adjust to, just because I underline when I read and I like have physical printouts in front of me. However, it'll be one major thing I can change in my lifestyle to make it more ecofriendly. In addition to that, I've decided to use re-usable dishes in the school's refectory. If I can remember to grab a plate before going to pick out my lunch, I can save a plate. If I grab a spoon after I get my soup, I can save a plastic one. These are specific choices I can make to readjust my thinking to be centered on environmental issues.
Anyway, because of that conscious decision, I brought my laptop to work at Holy Grounds tonight so I can read my articles for tomorrow. I have read 0 of 3 articles for tomorrow (but I finished the book that's due). They even sound interesting! I just need to read them. The one I especially want to read is on the eroticization of Quaker bonnets in religious art... should be pretty enlightening and fun to read... I just have to do it.
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4 comments:
Treebeard is very proud of you. And so am I.
Have you ever looked into buying offsets for your plane rides back to GB? They might be a nifty thing to ask for as Christmas presents or b-day presents. (Btw, you still haven't given me your mailing address so I can send you your b-day present.Give it up!)
I really liked to make notes upon notes for my readings when I was an undergrad, so I feel your pain. I hope accessing your articles online works out for you!
Also I forgot to mention, at my old job, there was a small issue with people not washing their dishes everyday, so they took them all away. Now it's just paper plates and napkins. SUCK. Glad I don't work there anymore, but it's not really that unique. Can you carry a spoon around with you during the day?
I did look into the offsets thing! It looked cool. It's on the way for things-I'm-planning-on-doing, with my worm compost. I'll e-mail you my address!
There's a kitchen off of the Refectory that has plates and glasses and silverware, so I've just been grabbing things from there. The Earth Care Committee made them available just for uses such as mine!
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