I couldn’t post this yesterday because I was practicing electricity conservation in honor of Earth Day. I actually wrote this post with a good old fashioned pen and paper. How about that?
April 22nd, 2:00 p.m.
I decided for my contribution to Earth Day I would use as little electricity as possible for one day. (I would have tried using no electricity but it was 100 degrees yesterday so I did have to turn the ceiling fans on and set the A/C to 83 degrees, although it really didn’t come on that much.) That means no TV, lights, cooking, dishwasher, washing machine, dryer, computer, etc.
For food today I am just making things that don’t need to be cooked like cheese, crackers, and tuna sandwiches tonight. I don’t know what we’re gonna do about lights when the sun goes down, I haven’t thought that far in advanced. I guess we will just have to light some candles. That should be kinda fun actually. Tonight instead of watching TV after Eva goes to bed we will actually have to spend time together talking or maybe play a game. Oh the horror.
The reason I’m doing this is to give the Earth, and me, a little break from electricity pollution. Imagine if as a country we had one day a week or a month where everybody used as little electricity as possible (you still need a/c and heat) and didn’t drive their cars anywhere. How much pollution could we reduce? Besides the pollution I believe our lives as a whole would benefit. It would be like a mini camping trip once a week. Only with beds and indoor plumbing.
Do you think our ultra-commercialized nation could function without commerce for one day a week? I’m not advocating a law be passed or anything like that but maybe a tax credit for everyone who participates. Maybe you could turn in your electricity meter reading at tax time showing that you refrained from using electricity a certain number of days? I don’t know how you would prove that you didn’t drive your car though. Any ideas?
Don’t think I’m saying that technology and modern convenience are bad because trust me I enjoy them just as much as everybody else does. As a stay at home mom I know I would feel even more isolated if I didn’t have e-mail or facebook or my blog to make me feel connected to the outside world. So yes, I am grateful that I live in the 21st century and not the 18th. But maybe there are a few things we can gain by saying goodbye to those things for just 1 out of 7 days a week.
The more and more I learn about our country’s history and our present circumstances compared to the rest of the world the more I am convinced we have some major changing to do. In education, health care, pollution, crime, and poverty. These are all areas that have been sorely neglected and need some major time and effort spent on each of them to improve. Maybe this is one thing we can do to combat the sad fact that we contribute entirely too much pollution to this earth. President Obama if you are reading…I’d be thrilled to head the committee!