Environmental Goddess

Yep. That's me.

I spent the day recuperating from the weekend. I rode Buckles, piddled around doing housework, made chicken salad (which is the first thing I crave when the weather turns hot), and baked lemon bars.

While the lemon bars baked, I went to No Impact Man's blog and, as I've been promising myself, started at the beginning. It was slow going because I kept stopping to do the things he suggests. So far today I removed myself and Tim from junk mail lists here (at a cost of $1 each name and about 1 minute).

I removed us from credit card mailing lists by calling 888-567-8688.

And I replaced twelve regular light bulbs with the compact florescent bulbs I bought a month ago but never got around to actually installing.

The title Environmental Goddess is very tongue in cheek. That's what I'd like to be but, so far, all I've done is the easy stuff. I recycle. I reduce and re-use but that might be more because I'm cheap than because of the environment. I turn off lights, do errands when I'm already in town, run the laundry and the dishwasher only when they're full. Again, maybe because I'm more cheap than green.

Even now, I have mixed motives for my renewed green-ness. I have stuck in my head a statement from a New York Times article where a general (I think) said something to the effect that buying oil from the Middle East is funding the rope to hang ourselves. In my heart of hearts, I know this is true.

As I know that billions of humans on our little planet hurtling through space cannot help but have some kind of effect--on climate, on air quality, on water, on resources. Frankly, I'm tired of the debate. I read somewhere else (don't remember where) if a doctor told me my kid was sick and there was a ninety-percent chance his illness was caused by eating too much peanut butter, then I'd get him off the peanut butter. I have to wonder, at what percentage of certainty will I think I should do more for my planet?