Make One Change Today...
A couple of months ago when I started my job at Disney and my commute changed to a little over an hour at 100 miles a day, I realized that I needed to sell my Jeep to decrease the cost in how much I was spending on fuel every month and purchase a Toyota Prius. At least, that was the initial reason. However, since that purchase, I've become ever more aware of the carbon footprint my family has on Earth.
I have always been somewhat interested in making that step towards a greener life but have never really made an effort. Purchasing my Prius has encouraged me to continue to evaluate my life and see where I can make small changes here and there.
After looking through National Geographic'sThe Green Guide, I learned that we can make a difference even with small and simple changes. You certainly don't need to sell your car to be more green. Little changes here and there will better the life around you.
About a year ago, my wife and I replaced has many light bulbs around the home as we could with CFLs to not only save money by not having to replace our bulbs as often, but to also save money in electricity usage throughout the year.
According to a recent report, citizens of Southern California drink the most bottled water in the nation. Many of us have gotten used to this luxury and think that tap water is absolutely horrid and disgusting. Yet won't people don't realize is how bad that plastic bottle is for our environment. My wife and I are guilty of drinking lots of bottled water as we don't have a tap in our refrigerator. We would buy three cases of Kirkland Signature bottled water from Costco about once a month (I think each case may have had 35 bottles or so). With that I decided that was one of the changes I wanted to make to reduce the amount of plastic waste I was generating. I have completely stopped drinking bottled water altogether now and only drink tap water. When I am at work, I fill up my durable plastic drinking bottle with the Arrowhead water they provide us that is delivered in the large bottles that Arrowhead reuses. This change is small and tap water doesn't taste as bad once you have acclimated to it. In fact, I actually prefer it now. I was not able to convince my wife to completely switch over to tap, but she has switched over to Arrowhead bottled water as they now use 30% less plastic.
As someone who tends to print out content from the computer more than I really need to, another change that I am testing out is using recycled printer paper in my laser printer. The first ream I am testing is Staples brand 100% recycled paper. It is thinner than I would like my paper to be. After this ream is up, I may switch to 30% or find a different brand to try out.
Overall, I have attempted to take a second look of what I use in everyday life to see how I can improve my green factor. I hope that you will see how easy it is to make simple changes in your everyday life and encourage others to do the same.
I invite you to join me in making a difference. Sign up with MakeMeSustainable.com to learn more about how you can.
For more resources on the small steps you can take, visit the following for more information:
We should start a prius club :P haahaa, I love my prius, looks like toyota is creating a plugin production version. not sure when it will be released. up to 60 mph on electric only... wow.
I'm glad you wrote this article so I can let everyone know the truth. Read this article from Brad Templeton. He is the Chairman on EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) http://www.eff.org/
"Today, many of my friends have bought a car like the Toyota Prius, feeling they are doing their bit to help the environment by burning less gas. The Prius costs around $3,000-$6,000 more than a comparable old-style engine car (in part because high demand keeps the price high), and the savings on gasoline don’t justify it on a financial basis unless you do nothing but drive all day. So the main reason to buy it is to help the environment and to make a statement before your peer group.
Problem is, there’s an argument that you’re hurting the environment, counterintuitive as that sounds. And no, it’s not just the unanswered questions about recycling the fancy batteries in the Prius when they fade. Read on…
The Prius gets about 44 “real” mpg, not nearly as much better than the similar Corolla or Camry models as EPA figures suggest. Consumer’s Union suggests a typical driver will save 176 gallons/year over a Corolla and 284 over a Camry. As the Prius-style non-hybrid is in between, call it 200 gallons or $450/year — $2800 present value over the predicted 8 year life of the battery. Not enough to cover the added cost of a Hybrid today (in part because high demand for Hybrids makes them more expensive) but it is nice to get.
But what if you didn’t buy it and put the saved money into carbon credits? Well, you could offset 681 tonnes of CO2 with $1500 at the current cheap U.S. price. That’s 77,000 gallons of gasoline!.
Yup. Buy buying the more expensive Prius rather than buying a cheaper similar car and putting the savings into carbon credits, it’s like burning 77,000 gallons of gas. That’s like driving an 10mpg Hummer 770,000 miles — around the world 30 times. Or like taking 10 Camrys that drive 20,000 miles/year off the road for the 8 year life of the Prius. At the European cost, which is more (I’ve seen quotes ranging from $11 to $25) it’s not so bad, $1500 buys only 136 tonnes, or 15,000 gallons of gasoline — only 6 trips around the world in the Hummer. At $25 it’s a more modest 6800 gallons offset by $1500 and only 2.7 circumnavigations.)
Ok, so this is just greenhouse gas and not the other pollutants, so we’ll need to do a bit more work on the numbers.
You might not believe in carbon credits. But you can also do something more direct, namely put the money into subsidizing other clean sources like wind and solar, especially thermo-solar rather than PV. However, they still pale in comparison to the pollution credits.
The interesting thing is that I expect that even if everybody did accept the validity of these numbers (and even I agree there are many factors to consider in getting the right number) I doubt people would line up to buy cheaper cars and put the savings into pollution credits, while they are lining up to pay more for a hybrid. The hybrid gives you a good feeling and something to show off. People have always wanted to show off their tastes with their car choice. The hybrid reminds you each day that you did something, in a very physical way, the credits are too abstract for most. Our brains seem to be wired that way.
Speaking of solar, people often desire to put up solar panels on their roof for clean electricity. Some fool themselves, by ignoring everything they learned about mortgage math, into thinking that solar panels can pay for themselves. They can’t yet, though perhaps someday they will. You can generally take the money you would have spent in the solar equipment, and put it in other investments and get back more than the panels save in electricity bills. Plus, while the panels sit there losing money, they also depreciate as they age. Nobody would normally buy an investment that returns 4% and where the principal depreciates to nothing over time.
However, it gets worse if you imagine what you could do putting the spare money into pollution credits. A 5kw solar system will cost about $20,000 even with the huge rebates offered in some areas. Buy $20K worth of carbon credits, and you could offset the greenhouse gas emissions not just of your own home but many more. $20K means 9000 tonnes, which translates into roughly 9 gigawatt-hours generated from coal, oil, gas and hydro mix. Your house probably uses 8 megawatt-hours in a year. That means you could offset the electricity usage of 80 similar houses over the 30 year life of the panels. (Assuming 6% interest and the price of credits remaining the same.)" full article at http://ideas.4brad.com/how-prius-drivers-are-gross...
You are also seem to assume these people are purely buying a car based upon fuel mileage, which is also false. As you yourself indicate in snarky and unfriendly remarks, your car is generally reflective of your own sense of identity. This is, in large part, what people are willing to spend money on. I want to drive something that makes me feel good (hybrid or otherwise).
Lastly, your argument totally loses sight of the importance of changing one's behavior. By driving a hybrid I have taken something I will be doing anyway and hopefully minimized its environmental impact. Throwing money around is not changing my behavior (besides being totally unrealistic). What you propose equates to someone who sins without remorse because going to confession has absolved him of guilt.
Honestly, folks like yourself tend to do more harm to the cause than help. Your argument here probably annoyed or angered a number of people who are actively trying to do a better job. You make the cause of going green the domain of elitists who will bash anyone who doesn't meet their unrealistic standards. Rather than help broaden the movement you work towards narrowing it thereby its audience and limiting its effectiveness. Instead of trying to drive folks away with your condescension, how about doing something productive that could generate some cash you can throw at your carbon credits.
This is just propaganda copy/pasted from other sites anyway. Similar to other stupid posts that hummers are MORE env friendly, or that the Prius batteries will kill firefighters, etc. The link doesn't even work... Yawn
How dare you criticize someone before not knowing all the facts. I have recently cut down my commuting days from 5 to 4 days as this is all my job allows me to do. In my previous job, I had to work 5 days a week virtually from home and I did not like it at all because it did not allow me to gain the full benefits of working in an office with real people. I lost much of the necessary communication that one needs with their co-workers to be successful.
In addition, not that I need to justify my lifestyle to you, my wife works 50 miles from where I work and I chose this job because it is a great opportunity for me as anyone who reads my blog would back me up on. I don't have a choice but to work in North Hollywood. Furthermore, we ARE moving to an area that will shave another 12 miles off of my commute. Is it a huge difference? No, but it is a difference. It is undeniable that if everyone in this nation made one small change that as a whole it would make a difference. It should not be expected of those who are at least making the attempt to pick up the slack.
One thing to add though, the post was really about other things, making a change. It wasn't all about Hybrids. That was just one piece.
My wife and I commute to work daily, its 34 miles there and 34 back. Neither of us get to work from home much if at all. We use to have a Eclipse that got about 24-28 MPG on the hwy. Thats about 1.36 Gallons of gas one way. Roughly 2.72 Gallons a day. At todays Gas rate in St Louis, thats roughly $9.68 a day I am putting into the oil companies.
I now own a Prius that gets 44.6 MPG (current average, higher if slowed down), so I use about 1.52 gallons a day... that's about $5.42 a day I am putting into the oil companies.
Old Car Yearly Gas Cost (just for commuting): 2,323.20
Prius Yearly Gas Cost (just for commuting): 1,300.80
I used 1920 hours a year for my numbers (2080 hrs, assuming 20 days off a year)
(1920/40=48 wks)
(Cost of gas per day X 5 days) (27.1 for the Prius) (48.4 for the Old car)
So I am saving $1,023.60 a year just in commuting cost. This number is obviously a lot higher if I were to calculate other travel cost (weekends, entertainment, trips, etc...)
Not to mention my wife and I are reducing the carbon output by driving our Prius.
When the Prius goes PHEV, this cost savings will go WAY up... Pretty pumped about PHEVs myself.