you won't make yourself a name if you follow the rules

Reading true green: 100 everyday ways you can contribute to a healthier planet. One suggestion: clothesline.

Dear homeowners' association: FUCK YOU.

An electric stove apparently produces double the carbon emissions of a gas stove. I'm always going to opt for a gas stove if I can, because we have had to cook dinner during too many power outages and gas stoves don't require electricity to run, just to light the burner (and matches do that too), but. Nice to know it's also the eco-friendly option. (But doesn't a gas stove run on fossil fuel, where an electric stove doesn't necessarily?)

Soon's I get upstairs next, I'm unplugging my cell charger.

I wonder if I'd be allowed to get a plant to keep on my desk at work? And if so, if it'd survive? I work in a basement. Lights are only on in my section while we're there, so forty hours a week, give or take overtime. There's windows, but. Basement. Not good light spread. But true green is talking about natural air filter, absorption of pollutants and radiation, reducing cold-related illnesses and stress...be worth it.

I wonder where my retirement money from the state is being invested. All I know is that it's going in a fund.

The Feb 28 recommendation from the Living Green calendar is to pick a green item, like a water bottle or a reusable shopping bag, and buy one for everyone for their birthday. Not a bad idea. We are overflowing with water bottles and coffee mugs and I've already failed to get my family to switch to cloth napkins, but reusable shopping bags, now there's a thought.

The Mar 13 recommendation: alternativegiftregistry.org. I do not have a major event coming up for which a gift registry would be a thing, but keep it in mind.

May 21: Huh. Hand-crank cell phone chargers. Dunno how effective they'd be, but it is definitely a thought.

May 25: cheerful thoughts about funerals. I knew I don't want a traditional burial, and no duh cremation releases CO2, so I'd been thinking about donating my body to science. Still might, on condition that when science is done with it, they Promession it. Or natural burial.

Apparently a vendor of cloth menstrual pads is having a sale. (Link to post where I learned of this, which has link to sale.) Users of cloth pads: pros, cons? Because reusable trumps disposable, which is what I'm using now. One definite con: disposable pads are on the list of 'things Mom won't ask me to pay her back for' and cloth pads wouldn't be.

The same vendor has a free sample program, and if you move quick enough today you get free shipping. I figure it's worth a try, right?

Signed up for the 10:10 challenge to reduce carbon footprint by ten percent in a year (originally in 2010, but any year will do). Then I thought, hm, what is my carbon footprint?

Eighteen tons of CO2 a year. Nine tons below the US average. Twelve and half over the world average.

Funding carbon offset programs through nature.org is, for 10:10, cheating. I'm still gonna do it, at the rate of $25/month when it's $15 to offset a single ton, but it's cheating. I really don't know how I'm going to get down to sixteen tons by this time next year. Little chart came with the calculator results says most of my footprint is home energy use. I don't have control over the thermostat settings and insulation around here. Will shutting down my computer and turning off the power strip during worktime and sleeptime really reduce my energy use significantly enough to justify the inconvenience?

(yes, still procrastinating)

*flips through the Living Green: 365 ways to make a difference flippy calendar*

"For a few dollars more per month, your local utility will deliver wind, solar, or water power, or some combination thereof." I rent a bedroom, a fraction of a basement, and use of the bathrooms and kitchen and utilities. I doubt this is an option.

"Resolve to buy dry goods like flour [et al] in bulk." Yes, because clearly I have the money and the storage space and the expectation of being able to use all I buy.

Note to self, investigate the possibilities found via eatwellguide.org and localharvest.org. Particularly "Adam and E's Garden of Eatin'", just because of the name. I don't expect the food budget to be substantially diverted, though.

"Eliminate all harmful chemicals from your personal-care products. Become a habitual label-reader. One simple rule: if you wouldn't put it in your mouth, don't put it on your skin[.]" Personal-care products have to be tested to hell and gone to make sure they're safe before they're sold, don't they? This idea isn't so much about harmful chemicals as about sciency-sounding chemicals.

Reusable water bottle? Do that. Take lunch instead of buying? Do that, when there's food to be took. Give to an environmental charity? Do that. Microloans to entrepreneurs committed to sustainable farming—don't do that specifically, but do do microloans. I'm looking for new things.

And that exhausts January in the calendar, and all I've learned is to investigate my Kiva recipients a bit more carefully and maybe focus on women in sustainable farming rather than women in the arts. And investigate environmentally friendly power and ask my parents if they'll (or, more likely, I'll or we'll) spend a few more dollars a month to get it. Given my mother's reaction to the impending disappearance of incandescent bulbs from the shelves, namely 'stock up', I doubt the reaction will be a positive one. (Had to buy the fluorescent for my desk lamp myself, after discovering that the LED desk lamp from ThinkGeek is ineffectual at lighting more than a few inches of desk and also had busted LEDs. At least the one I got was. I don't know if they've come out with another.)