Back in October of 2017 I wrote a Daily Bucket diary on energy conservation under my user name (at that time) of Sylvanus Prince.
With summer coming on and energy consumption rising in direct but not necessarily proportional relation to hot weather temperatures, I thought it might be a good time to revisit the topic.
Allow me to quote myself from back in the fall of 2017:
Take a look around you, right now. Is there anything that’s burning energy at your place that you don’t need right now, that you can turn off and live without for the present? CLICK! Turn it off. That’s one more dram of coal that didn’t get burned, one more molecule of carbon dioxide that didn’t released into the atmosphere, one less little heat trap up there, one fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a degree less in terms of increasing global warming. Negligible if it’s only you but quantitatively significant if lots of people do it.
We love our planet. We want it to be a nice place to live, for our sake, for our children’s sake, for our friends’ sake, for humanity’s sake and for the sake of all the wonderful and marvelous and mysterious and beneficial plants and animals that we come across every day in our experiences of nature and the natural world. Even those life forms we now consider detrimental or dangerous, such as invasive species and nasty viruses and various poisonous and venomous shagnasties, have their place in the natural world and who knows? Tomorrow we may find out that we can turn them to our benefit. Thing is, we don’t know which ones they may be. Thing is, if we don’t do our little part to protect this planet and ensure that even the lowliest life form continues in existence we may end up shooting ourselves in the foot in the long run. We all need to do our little part to help. With that, I’d like to share a few things around my own place that I hope are helping.
The Daily Bucket is a nature refuge. We amicably discuss animals, weather, climate, soil, plants, waters and note life’s patterns.
We invite you to note what you are seeing around you in your own part of the world, and to share your observations in the comments below.
Each note is a record that we can refer to in the future as we try to understand the phenological patterns that are quietly unwinding around us. To have the Daily Bucket in your Activity Stream, visit Backyard Science’s profile page and click on Follow.
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Before I talk about my current energy conserving measures, I’d like to vent on something: why is it that certain household appliances, like my coffee maker, have a pilot light just to indicate the darned thing is plugged in? And my phone. And my computer speakers? And my air conditioner?
Now, I am definitely not one to go in for conspiracy theories, and these itsy-bitsy indicator lights couldn’t burn more than a few pennies per month, but it sure makes me wonder. Are the appliance manufacturers getting a kick-back from the electricity utilities? No, I certainly don’t believe that. I’m sure these lights are there because design engineers think it is wise to advertise that your device is at least powered on. In some cases this is a good thing, like for a clothes iron. But in my opinion most of these just needlessly waste electricity.
Now on to what I am currently doing to conserve energy. Nothing new, really. Nothing much has changed for me in the past few years in this regard. Because I don’t drive I walk, bicycle, or take the bus for transportation or hire a friend in exigent circumstances. I don’t use my air conditioner unless the temperature in the house exceeds 85f. I turn off any light I really don’t need. I use a backpack and cloth shopping bags for hauling groceries and sundries.
It just doesn’t seem that there’s much more I can do. But that’s o.k. I can take satisfaction that I’m doing what I can.
Besides, I’d much rather discuss “animals, weather, climate, soil, plants, waters and [noting] life’s patterns.”
This morning in Quincy, CA:
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"SPOTLIGHT ON GREEN NEWS & VIEWS" WILL BE POSTED EVERY SATURDAY AT NOON PACIFIC TIME AND EVERY WEDNESDAY AT 3:30 PACIFIC TIME ON THE DAILY KOS FRONT PAGE. BE SURE TO RECOMMEND AND COMMENT IN THE DIARY.
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Now It's Your Turn
What have you noted happening in your area or travels? As usual post your observations as well as their general location in the comments.
Thank you.