July 20, 2007--Fanaticism LXXXIV: Flushing
The media had its daggers out after the recent Live Earth six-continent extravaganza. One would have thought with the now virtually untouchable Al Gore fronting for it that the affair would have been adored by the press. Instead on Fox as well as in the NY Times the commentary was blistering, especially in regard to the apparent hypocrisy of many of the participants (including the former vice president) who made speeches about what we need to do to heal the earth while living high-carbon lives. How many arrived in gas-guzzling private jets? How many sounded ridiculous when they proclaimed the virtues of recycling while owning multiple 10 thousand square foot homes?
I watched a lot of it, loving Madonna’s performance, and did make note of these contradictions; but after having my fill of the next-day’s condemnations, found myself getting more annoyed with the criticisms than the celebrities’ preachments.
What the hell are we as individuals supposed to do to in the face of potentially calamitous climate change? Single handedly end our nation’s and the rest of the world’s addiction to fossil fuel? Go out to our garages and invent new solar-power technologies? Design a mass-transit system for Los Angeles that people will actually use? Get the Chinese and Indians to stop building superhighway? Force George Bush to sign the Kyoto Protocol? Build a windmill on the top of my 250-apartment apartment building in New York City?
I know--we as individuals are supposed to work though our political system to elect Green-minded officials and then keep the (solar) heat on them to do some of these kinds of things. Sure.
As a case in point about how well this kind of approach is working take a look at the current fiasco in the U.S. Senate where there are almost as many amendments circulating about how to extract ourselves from Iraq as there are senators. So what can we expect of them and other so-called political leaders when it comes to requiring auto makers to make more fuel efficient cars or taxing oil companies for their windfall profits?
Some of the most talented and inventive of us are working on technologies like the newly created microbe that might have the capacity to devour the CO2 in the atmosphere; but if I want to do something I’m left with the prospect, like (forgive me) Cameron Diaz, of doing a lot of little things that make at least some difference and perhaps contribute to a shift in cultural and political consciousness that is essential to anything substantial changing.
Thus, I’m getting obsessed about my garbage. Though we live in a 14-storey building and we have trash chutes, I have become a recycling demon. I’m even careful to bundle tiny used note pad pages in with the newspapers, relentless in distinguishing between newsprint and coated paper though New York and perhaps no one else makes that distinction. We’ve replaced all our incandescent light bulbs with screw-in fluorescents, even though there is a delay in the light switching on and they give off less light, which also has a tendency to flutter. Of course I turned our AC down (or is it up?) so that though there is cooling there is less than in previous years.
And there are a few funkier, more fanatical things that I’ve been doing, some of which I am going to have to leave to your imagination since I do have a shred of self-image I want to attempt to preserve.
Though New York’s reservoirs are at the moment quite full, and whatever water I contribute to saving will do nothing to alleviate drought conditions in the U.S. west and elsewhere in the world, I have become a water-conserving fiend. For decades I left the sink water running when I brushed my teeth—even using lukewarm water which is unnecessary and wastes the fuel oil needed to heat the water. Now I use only cold water and turn it on only three times while brushing—initially to wet the brush (this, I am thinking, may be unnecessary since I use “wet” toothpaste); halfway through to wash the remaining paste off the brush; and when finished, once again to clean to bowl and to clean the brush. [I’m sure I can do better and look forward to receiving your suggestions.] This working the water tap is not as easy to do as it might appear—it requires some juggling and manual dexterity. But I’m getting better at it morning-by-morning.
Now I call upon your imagination because I turn to the subject of flushing. There are two of us and, say, we each “go to the bathroom” on average five times in 24 hours. Under ordinary conditions that would require 10 flushes. At a couple of gallons a flush (we have old-fashioned bathroom equipment) that adds up to 20 gallons a day, or 7,300 a year. Assuming, in my obsession about this I represent a case of arrested Freudian development, how might I cut down on this aspect of my use of water?
Once you figure it out, try it. It works and I suspect it will help make you feel virtuous. And it also contributes to making a difference.
I watched a lot of it, loving Madonna’s performance, and did make note of these contradictions; but after having my fill of the next-day’s condemnations, found myself getting more annoyed with the criticisms than the celebrities’ preachments.
What the hell are we as individuals supposed to do to in the face of potentially calamitous climate change? Single handedly end our nation’s and the rest of the world’s addiction to fossil fuel? Go out to our garages and invent new solar-power technologies? Design a mass-transit system for Los Angeles that people will actually use? Get the Chinese and Indians to stop building superhighway? Force George Bush to sign the Kyoto Protocol? Build a windmill on the top of my 250-apartment apartment building in New York City?
I know--we as individuals are supposed to work though our political system to elect Green-minded officials and then keep the (solar) heat on them to do some of these kinds of things. Sure.
As a case in point about how well this kind of approach is working take a look at the current fiasco in the U.S. Senate where there are almost as many amendments circulating about how to extract ourselves from Iraq as there are senators. So what can we expect of them and other so-called political leaders when it comes to requiring auto makers to make more fuel efficient cars or taxing oil companies for their windfall profits?
Some of the most talented and inventive of us are working on technologies like the newly created microbe that might have the capacity to devour the CO2 in the atmosphere; but if I want to do something I’m left with the prospect, like (forgive me) Cameron Diaz, of doing a lot of little things that make at least some difference and perhaps contribute to a shift in cultural and political consciousness that is essential to anything substantial changing.
Thus, I’m getting obsessed about my garbage. Though we live in a 14-storey building and we have trash chutes, I have become a recycling demon. I’m even careful to bundle tiny used note pad pages in with the newspapers, relentless in distinguishing between newsprint and coated paper though New York and perhaps no one else makes that distinction. We’ve replaced all our incandescent light bulbs with screw-in fluorescents, even though there is a delay in the light switching on and they give off less light, which also has a tendency to flutter. Of course I turned our AC down (or is it up?) so that though there is cooling there is less than in previous years.
And there are a few funkier, more fanatical things that I’ve been doing, some of which I am going to have to leave to your imagination since I do have a shred of self-image I want to attempt to preserve.
Though New York’s reservoirs are at the moment quite full, and whatever water I contribute to saving will do nothing to alleviate drought conditions in the U.S. west and elsewhere in the world, I have become a water-conserving fiend. For decades I left the sink water running when I brushed my teeth—even using lukewarm water which is unnecessary and wastes the fuel oil needed to heat the water. Now I use only cold water and turn it on only three times while brushing—initially to wet the brush (this, I am thinking, may be unnecessary since I use “wet” toothpaste); halfway through to wash the remaining paste off the brush; and when finished, once again to clean to bowl and to clean the brush. [I’m sure I can do better and look forward to receiving your suggestions.] This working the water tap is not as easy to do as it might appear—it requires some juggling and manual dexterity. But I’m getting better at it morning-by-morning.
Now I call upon your imagination because I turn to the subject of flushing. There are two of us and, say, we each “go to the bathroom” on average five times in 24 hours. Under ordinary conditions that would require 10 flushes. At a couple of gallons a flush (we have old-fashioned bathroom equipment) that adds up to 20 gallons a day, or 7,300 a year. Assuming, in my obsession about this I represent a case of arrested Freudian development, how might I cut down on this aspect of my use of water?
Once you figure it out, try it. It works and I suspect it will help make you feel virtuous. And it also contributes to making a difference.
posted by Steven Zwerling at
10:37 AM
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