I believe I was attracted the fact that the campaign recognises the importance and power of women's decisions in the home, especially when all working towards a common goal.
So I joined, I set up my activity register and then I waited a few weeks before marking my progress on some of the activities.
I will admit that I chose some activities that I had already implemented around the house (like buying 10% green power, installing water saving shower heads and power saving light bulbs) but I didn't feel I should lose out because I had taken the steps earlier than the project came in!
So I haven't REALLY made sudden changes to my life in the last 3 weeks to save 1000kg of carbon emissions as per the info below.... but I have over the last few months AND I've set some new goals that I'm working towards due to the campaign.
The only issue I have with things like this is it assumes you are a guzzling idiot to start with. For example, my water bill says that I use the equivalent of 1 person with no garden... when we are 2 people with a big garden and rain water (probably why it is mostly dead thanks to summer)...
ReplyDeleteNext... it tells you to reduce your electricity bill every quarter... it doesn't tell you how much is a reasonable amount of electricity use for x people, however I don't think I'm doing too badly there.
Install water saving heads... not going to happen. A flatmate once did this and it turned my showers from 4-5 minutes to 10+ because the pressure was so reduced it took me 3 times as long to wash soap out of my hair... however, see water use.
Incandescent globes? The energy to product them, and the waste they create, is worse than the old globes, and they only last about 1/3 of the length of time... yeah... smart? not! Gosh I hate and detest the new globes. I'm always freaking buying them! I think it is a marketing stunt. Example: I've changed my lounge globe 1-2 a year which is a fluro and I am only in the lounge maybe one night a week, yet I've only changed my toilet light once in 4 years which is switched on and off all the time because it is so dark in there even during the day.... so which is worse for the environment? That, plus the fact that with fluros you can't turn the light on and off as you go in and out of rooms. You have to leave it on once it is switched on for an hour or more or you reduce the life of the globe. They weren't designed for household use.
There are LED globes now, but we can't buy them because aussie warehouses are still full of compact fluroescent bulbs thanks to slick commercial dickheads feeding us this bull about them being better for the environment.
Arg... end rant I guess. Gosh I get frustrated at some of this because 90% of the activities don't apply to people like you and me.
Fluros also leech mercury into our water table which will probably start killing us in 50 years...
ReplyDelete*nods* I do appreciate what you mean. My frustration with the website was more that it didn't give enough information about WHY.
ReplyDeleteLike there was an activity about developing a more vegetarian diet.... BUT no decent information given about why this reduces carbon emissions. The only reason I knew was because I'd listened to a broadcast of a public lecture about changes to make a sustainable diet. This is the same thing you mentioned with them not providing info about reasonable electricity usage per person.
Heh heh. I get the feeling you aren't a fan of Fluro bulbs ;)
hehe really not. Mark isn't either. Another problem I found in renovating is that all the lights are set up for either fluros or hallogens these days giving you much less flexibility in choice.
ReplyDelete