Turn Down Your Thermostat

Did you know that is Blog Action Day, and that this year's theme is Climate Change? I'd forgotten until Ilina posted a list of simple ways to be more environmentally conscious. Her list is pretty comprehensive, but she forgot one thing: turn down your thermostat in the winter. She's forgiven, though, because she lives in the south.

We haven't yet turned on the heat in our house - partially out of frugality, partially out of energy consciousness - even though the early morning outside temperatures have been in the 30s, and it is decidedly chilly in the house. (There hasn't yet been a frost.) Last year, we made it to the beginning of November; the other day, my husband quipped that we should aim for the first of December.

Once we do deign to put the heat on, we use a programmable thermostat that keeps the heat at 55°F at night and during the middle of the day. For the morning and evening rush, the temperature spikes up to 64°F. On weekends, we compromise at 60°F during the day. Yeah, it's not toasty warm in the house, but move around! Wear a sweater!

Tonight, I'll probably dig out the second duvet - I layer a newish medium weight one with a worn out thin one to get a nice winter weight down comforter.

And I'm not going to turn on the heat until I have to.

---

Edited to add - Apparently, it's snowing big juicy clumps at home. At work? Just rain. Perhaps we won't make it to the end of the month...

Healthy Eating

So, the child came home from school with a packet of "work", with a cover sheet that read:

The kindergarten classes had their first Health rotation. We learned about nutrition and how to keep ourselves safe and healthy.

Included was a page on which the child was to have drawn a healthy meal. I'm not sure what they're teaching because on that plate, counter-clockwise from the left, is butter, pasta, grapes, potato, and Tylenol.


Yes, those two pink things under the potato? Apparently, Tylenol is part of a healthy meal. Who knew?  (Let's not discuss the fact that the grapes are bigger than the potato, and there's no protein on the plate.)

Today - 15 October - is Blog Action Day and this year's theme is poverty. Notwithstanding the fact that my child doesn't seem to know what constitutes a healthy meal, she does have enough to eat. There are people, many people, who don't get enough to eat. It's a global problem and a local one.

In NYC, the posh and glittering home of dozens of Michelin-starred restaurants, 1.3 million people rely on soup kitchens and food pantries. To help some more people eat better, I will make a contribution to the Food Bank for New York of $1 for every comment made here before midnight EST tonight.  I don't know how many comments I get on average, but I know it's never been as many as 50 even though I regularly have more than 50 visitors a day.  So, lurkers, come out of the closet and help feed the hungry.  Regulars, be sure and comment today - it's for a good cause.

Just Posts Kvelling

I'm thrilled to be on the list of Just Posts again for November. Thrilled. Especially because while I nominated one of my own posts (yes, that's kosher), a second of my posts also made the list. The whole list is at Mad's and at Jen's. Check out the many voices of conscience.

In the past month, since I wrote a Blog Action Day post about the environment, I've been on a junk mail rampage. If there's a postage paid return envelope, I return the address panel marked "REMOVE FROM LIST". If there's no envelope, but there is a fax number, I fax back the address panel, marked in the same way. If I have to, I resort to using the web or (horrors) the telephone. I've faxed back 62*. I didn't keep track of the phone/mail/internet removal requests, but maybe there were another twenty.

But I have a new outlet for my crankiness. My mother-in-law told me about a website where you can enter your name (and variants) and decline various catalogues. I don't know if it'll work, but it feels like a pro-active thing to do. So I declined five yesterday.




*Yes, I kept them in a pile and counted them yesterday before I threw them out - I'm some kind of a crazy person.

The Environment

I've been mulling over today's post for a while now - what to do, what to write, to somehow address the issue of the environment as part of Blog Action Day. And then, with great good luck, the Nobel Foundation awarded this year's Peace Prize to Al Gore and the IPCC - thereby spot-lighting the problems facing the world in a way that even multitudes of bloggers can't hope to touch.

The New York Times had a good editorial the other day - read it if you haven't already. It basically slams the US government, and others, for not stepping up to the plate and addressing the multitude of environmental problems facing our world. Paul Krugman follows that up with an op-ed piece today, about why the right hates Gore - because he "keeps being right".

It's hard to know what to do as an individual, but I find that every day, I get a little more vitriolic, and a little more conscious as to my actions. I bought reusable shopping bags and stashed the big ones in the car, and a small string bag in my so-called briefcase. We've replaced some light bulbs with compact fluorescents. I can't remember the last time that I ran a load of laundry in warm water (much less hot). We're about to replace the windows and door in the basement with energy efficient ones that fit properly and aren't patched with duct tape (and we should get a tax credit for some of that cost). We've been buying local produce and organic dairy products. We have a programmable thermostat that is set to drop the heat in the house to 55°F at night - although we haven't yet turned the heat on, though it's been about 40°F out in the morning the past few days. They are tiny little gestures, but important gestures none the less. We could do much better, as individuals, as a family, as a community, as a country. And I hope that we will.

Master satirist Tom Lehrer was talking about the environment way back when. Pollution was written in the early 60s, and is a scathing indictment of the then state of the environment. If you've never had the pleasure, the video is here and you can buy the record here.