Reducing Energy 101

Everyone knows that a huge part of going green has to do with reducing energy use across the board, or as I now like to put it, lowering my own personal carbon foot print, impressive terminology huh? But in order to figure out how much energy we use as a family I knew I would have to convert my watts usage over to kilowatts. When I looked on the Internet to look for a conversion chart this is one of the explanations I found;

Remember Energy is always conserved (such conservation is known as the first law of thermodynamics). Entropy is not. When you posses energy with the lowest entropy you posses the most useful form of energy for conversion to work. When you convert energy from one form to another, you create entropy (almost always) - and when you do, the process is called irreversible (because you generate entropy). In ideal cases you may have a process that does not cause any irreversibility, and consequently no entropy is generated. Electrochemical processes and processes where work is converted to work are such processes, but often not quite a 100% reversible. Anytime heat is produced and transferred from one temperature to another (i.e. across a temperature gradient)- the process is irreversible because entropy is generated.
Well certainly that explained it. This was almost as confusing to me as the time I tried to figure out my metabolic rate while standing on one foot with two fingers pressed against my neck while trying to count the beats with a stop watch in my other hand, as the cute little spandex red headed instructor encouraged me not to give up. For some reason my hearing is diminished when I exercise, maybe it has something to do with the amount of blood rushing to my brain, or maybe it’s simply that I can’t hear anything over my own self gasping for air. At any rate I thought I would have more luck trying to understand the theory of relativity than trying to convert watts over to kilowatts.
At dinner that night my husband asked me how I was coming along with my conversion project. “Well, I have decided to ditch that. Instead I think we’ll try to keep it simple by minimizing our usage.” Our sixteen year old daughter rolled her eyes and groaned, “Ugh. Like it’s not bad enough that you have switched my bathroom lights over to CFL’s and that I look like a clown every time I use make-up, but now you’re saying we can’t use the lights we do have?”
“No,” I snapped, ” I was talking about other energy uses, like the air conditioner, and the ceiling fan you leave running all night long.”
“Let me get this straight,” she snapped back, “so not only can’t we use the air, but now the ceiling fan has to be turned off. Hmm, I wonder how much worse my life could suck? Looking like a clown, not being able to sleep because I can’t have my fan on and what’s the other thing, oh yeah, and sweating like a pig all summer long – yippee.” She whined. I decided it probably was not the best time to bring up the subject of starting a composting pile. Yes, probably better to leave that for another day.

Grocery Shopping Combat

In searching for new ways to go green I thought a trip to the grocery store could prove to be inspirational. The store I shop at now has not only a special green section, but scattered throughout the store are various products which seem to be multiplying by the week. I'm always in a hurry when I go to the store, but this time I had planned my trip with enough time for me to be able to leisurely browse and investigate all my green options.

I started out in produce, weighing out the pros and cons between buying organic tomatoes and peaches versus non-organic. Really the only con was price, but then I thought about the amount of pesticides used on the non, and choose to go with organic. I was deep in thought about how I would justify my larger the usual grocery bill to my husband, when I heard a familiar sing-song shriek from behind.

"Oh my gosh, it's been sooo long since I've seen youooo, how are youooo." I stood there contemplating for a minute if I should pretend that I hadn't heard her, and start walking away slowly at first, then quickly gain momentum until I ditched her several isles away. If I did maybe she would be too embarrassed to follow in pursuit. But then I remembered it was Sally and she would hunt me down until finally cornering me over by the smoked hams. I took a deep breath and turned around, "Oh hi Sally, nice to see you." I lied. She looked at the tomatoes I was holding and the look that came over her face was as if she'd hit the mother load. "I never thought I would see you buying organic."

Now I had a decision to make; was I in the mood to stand there and go toe to toe with her, playing her little game, or was I not? I decided not. I was not going to give into the temptation of playing cat and mouse, so I simply smiled at her and said condescendingly, "Yes, well life is full of surprises isn't it Sally?" She slightly turned her head downward looking disappointed, when all of a sudden a creepy smile slowly spread across her lips as she focused in on my grocery cart. "Yes life is full of surprises. Like right now I'm surprised. I'm surprised that you would think to buy organic tomatoes, only to turn around and buy a roll of paper towel." She sneered. Before I had a chance to defend my alleged crime, she said, "You knooow, one micro fiber cloth replaces 60 rolls of paper towels. 60 rolls," she repeated as if I didn't hear her the first time. "Gee I wonder how many trees that saves from being cut down, and think of the landfills, gosh!" She was having this entire conversation with herself as if I weren't there. I couldn't have gotten one word in, even if I wanted to. Then she said, "Well I would love to stand and chat with you, but I have to get home and set up for Jenny's girl scout meeting. I'm teaching the girls how to make gazpacho today." And before I could respond gesundheit, she whipped her cart around, turning her back to me, and poof she was gone.

I stood there, shook my head in disgust, and said out loud, "I really can't stand you Sally, and I hope your gazpacho is rotten." I suddenly became conscious of the fact that I was standing in the middle of the grocery store, talking out loud to myself, when I caught the eye of a neighbor I hadn't noticed before. She smiled kindly and said, "Amen to that sister." Suddenly I felt rejuvenated with the realization that I was not alone. I continued on with my shopping trip, and left the roll of paper towel in my cart. I didn't need to explain myself to anyone. I knew that I had several micro fiber cloths at home, but that there were times when a paper towel was needed. So stick that in your gazpacho Sally!

Going Green is not for the Dogs

We’ve all heard the saying, you can’t teach old dog new tricks, but I wondered if my two dogs, Max and Mocha, could learn to go green. Hmm, how to green a dog; I know I’ll start with their food. Okay to be honest I got a coupon in the mail for $3.00 off a bag of a natural dog food, three dollars! Seeing as they already ate that brand already, how bad could it be? I figured that Max probably wouldn’t be able to tell the difference because at age 12 his taste buds were more than likely not what they once were. At first he turned his nose up, but finally relented and ate it. On the other hand, one year old Mocha had different plans. She picked out the new food, spit it on the floor, and then ate the old food still in the bowl. Cleverly, I had mixed the two together thinking that I would fake them out, not so much. I didn’t have much luck with the organic treats either.
Nothing seemed out of the ordinary to Mocha when she went out to do her business after dinner. She pranced out to the lawn, sniffed around, found the perfect spot, and when done came tearing up the driveway to claim her delicious reward. Foolishly I didn’t bring her inside the house before giving her the new organic treat. She took it in her mouth, dropped it, smelled it, and looked up at me as if to say, “You’re kidding, right?” Before I could get an old treat for her, she tore back down the driveway to terrorize the poor old beagle who happened to be walking down the street. His owner quickly snatched him up and glared at me like I was some kind of negligent idiot who shouldn’t even be allowed to pet a dog let alone own one. It was a look not unlike the look I received by the room of disapproving Mother’s when I asked, “Why must there be weekly meetings, wouldn’t every third week suffice?” It was the first and only time I ever attended a Brownie meeting with my daughter, but that’s another story.
I screamed at Mocha to come, then looked at the horrified look on the beagle’s owner’s face, and quickly changed my tone. “Come here Mocha my darling. I’ll give you a nice treat if you stop scaring that nice doggy.” I imagine the overweight beagle had not seen anything quite so intimidating as the 8 pound yorkie-poo Mocha jumping and bouncing around spastically as if she were a real live wind up toy.
I scratched the idea of store bought natural dog food and organic dog treats. Now I’m developing my own natural dog food recipes, because I still haven’t given up on the idea that you can teach an old dog new tricks, especially when it comes to going green. Not yet anyhow.