Aspies For Freedom

More and more people are starting to care about the footprint they leave on the world and resource consumption.

I started caring back in 2000 (Planet Earth 2000 hosted by Leonard DiCaprio, back then I was heavily dependent on public transit to commute 18 miles (shortest road route, and unknown distance by subway from Greenbelt to Crystal City and back)

I am adding to this list every couple weeks or so

1.  summer 2006 - compact flourescent bulbs I learned about watching An Inconvenient Truth

2.  spring 2007 - on/off showerhead to have what my professor called "Navy showers", I guess men on ship save water, though I know nuke subs can desalinate sea water as needed

3.  late summer 2007 - replace short car trips (< 3 miles) with bicycle travel (good weather) or walking (unfavorable weather), picked up $400 something bike in Hagerstown on a WV visit.  Best friend gave assistance picking it out, what a genius.  It is comfortable to ride (encourage me to ride) and partially disassembles (removable wheels, easier to carry indoors to third floor, up stairs, no elevator, because keeping a bike outside is an invitation to lose it, even locked).

Consolidate trips together, already doing that, Mom said put all one's ducks in a row.  

(I think we had bike thefts in our neighborhood.  I saw a lot of bikes out, now I only see one, and he took his removable seat out)

4.  Biodegradable, one month ago: paper bowls cups and plates, biodegradable forks knives spoons straws, replacing traditional Ziploc bags with wax paper bags, buying milk in paper cartons instead of in plastic jugs.  Phase out the plastic bowls I still have left for the cat.  You have to clean a plastic bowl.  Just use paper bowls and fresh water, dump the water into a waste jug when stale, put down another paper bowl and fill from an old milk jug

5.  Rechargable power, one month ago: it is sucha shame to take all those depleted (dead) alkaline batteries to the city hazardous waste facility or to the recycling bucket at the organic market (you are encouraged to recycle them, not throw them away).   Why buy them at all if you can but nickel metal hydride batteries you can recharge a thousand times?  (Save money)

5a. related idea, one month ago: Faraday (shake, crank, or pump) flashlights to replace battery-using flashlights

6.  Miscellaneous: razors.  Get a Forever Razor (tungsten blade, sharp for life?), stop buying disposable Sensor-compatible cartridges.  Put sharps (razors, used blood sugar testing lancets) in a sturdy plastic container.  Stypic pencil is preferable to the throwaway swaps.

7.  Laundry: Tide Coldwater formula (wash anything in cold water, never have to use warm or hot water in laundry machine)

8.  Electric consumption: check all lights out before leaving, check bath window closed (after ventilating post shower), use power strips to cut off the residual electricity that a TV set, computer, DVD player uses when turned off.  But not for the DVD or VCR or digital cable box or microwave with a clock.     Turn off A/C during day or set to 80-85 degrees.  Set gas heat in winter to 55 or 60, don't turn off (or busted pipes).

I still need to learn to turn off gas and water in a homeland security incident.  I know how to cut off the electric power to the unit.  

Add more later.  I probably forgot something.

I'm going to hold some high-power figure ransom, and will release him in return for all the rubbish from all the land fills, with which I am going to send in to the sun. In fact, if we can produce rubbish quick enough, we can chain a whole load of containers together, and have the sun's gravity pull them in, with new containers constantly being added.

On a, uhh, slightly more serious note, after watching Channel 4's Dumped, I have 'sort of' became more green, but only slightly. You know, turning off my monitor if I'm going elsewhere, even just for a few minutes.

Ecological footprint quiz (Just one I remember doing a while ago): http://www.earthday.net/footprint/index.asp

I don't quite see how that works, as there should be little it needs to do to switch off or on. An explanation would be nice

Sorry for posting three times in such a short amount of time, but I just had to link this video. Took a while to find the original, but it's one I have always liked.

http://threeleggedlegs.com/repertoire/humans/

(Not quite sure just how many people have seen this before, though I realise it has since I first saw it been posted on Youtube)

That's right, Emmy!  Guess Who, get your arse out of bed a little earlier and walk or bike a mile, please!

I am well aware of the supplemental good reasons to conserve fossil fuel usage (not just reducing global CO2 or saving money on gas):

1.  We are importing quite a bit, and the Middle Eastern countries have us by the short hairs, we are their ***.  The less we need them, the less we need to have Americans over there.
2.  I think I'd weigh 30 pounds lighter at least if I had to walk bike or rarely take public transit.
3.  Because we also have hourly car rental down here (Flexcar and Zipcar) if you rented a car as needed you would dump the thousands on insurance, maintenance, repair, registration, personal property tax, and even gas (they include gas in the $8 an hour), I really think owning a car down here is a SHAME.

Jimmy Carter knew all right when he said drive 55, wear a sweater.  The Carter Doctrine says the U.S.A. would use any necessary force to protect access to Middle Eastern oil.  

Hello, Desert Shield, Desert Storm, and Gulf War 2.

Too busy worrying about making a living.  I did not finish training for my present-day career, computer programming, until June 1999, or start working at my current place until August 1999 (the day before a solar eclipse, Aug 11 1999).

My undergraduate in sociology did not make a difference in 1992.
My graduate in sociology did get me interviews, but nothing else, after 1996.


Another strategy: reusable plastic (Giant Food grocery) or canvas (Harris Teeter grocery) shopping bags (or reusing paper bags, the organic market, where I dump my depleted alkaline batteries).  If I do get throwaway plastic bags, I return them to the recycle bin at Giant unless they are contaminated with raw meat.

Mom used to recycle her beer cans (and generate a few).  I used to take them to P.G. Scrap in College Park MD.  

I generate too few aluminum cans but to take them to the office and put them in the coke can box.

I picked up two crank-operated flashlight radios at Target.  Except for one world band radio, and the shower radio, I plan to send the rest of the battery powered radios to Goodwill (chain thrift store for the needy and "disabled")

Forgot: I started rinsing plastic pop bottles and the like and taking them to the "commingled recyclables" bin, but they hardly ever empty those things.  I could take them to the city hazardous waste and recycling facility on Wheeler Ave., but I'd probably have to consume petrol to do it.

When I was maybe 15 Nickelodeon had a kid show called Turkey Television.  A series of vignettes in succession, black and white or color, like the peaceful police, or belching cows.  The punch line on the cows: a simulated teletype from the Russians "sure we'll disarm but first stop the cows!"

I take it the cows are not funny.  I am sure the people aren't.

Here is what I forgot.  

I am trying to avoid hydrocarbon propellent aerosol products.  They are not chloroflourocarbons and will not harm the ozone layer.  However people with respiratory problems can be harmed by the kind of pollution that might happen if you put gas in your car's tank during the day, and the liquid gasoline displaces the vapor in the tank, might be a problem or aggravation on those code red air quality days (when the buses in Maryland don't charge a fare, put a paper bag over the coin box).

This is not the Los Angeles area, this is Washington, but we have heavy commuting going on here, too, even if I opted out, and yes, we have bad air quality days here for people with asthma, bronchitis, and son on.

Oh yeah..... I need to take the stairs instead of use the elevator at work.   Just to move 299 pounds up one or two floors, the elevator itself weighs more.

I'm used to one mile walks or two 15-minute bike rides in close succession.

Reusing water bottles, but only for two months.  It is possible to have bacterial growth in the reusable plastic water bottles.  

Note: if you refill them, use a funnel, so there is something between the bottle and your germs, and the spigot at the water cooler.

I used to iron my own work clothes but after a year of that (Aug 2000) I thought, heck, go to Dryclean Depot ($1.75 for slacks, $ .99 for shirts).

The place I use now, same story but $1.89 for slacks.

I could steam press them, but would it take a lot of time?  No way to know unless I try right?  Ironing with a traditional iron took 3 hours, but maybe I was a perfectionist.

Some cat litter can be flushed down the toilet but it's a good idea to be careful about that.