So, what the heck is a Green Suburbanite?
When I read Home Power or Mother Earth News magazines, I read a lot about people living off the grid. Wind and water turbines being used to power homes 24/7, growing their own food, living unique and varied lifestyles in the middle of the woods miles from the nearest store. That's all great! I love those magazines and I love reading about people who live off the grid, but that's not most of us. How do we, living in cities and suburbs, live lightly when it comes to our carbon footprint, our consumption and our waste? In this blog I'll share what I do, what I've learned and new products and ideas that come to my attention. I'll start the conversation in the hope that you'll participate and enlighten me and others reading this blog.
BackgroundMy wife and I have two sons, ages 2 and 5, and live in the suburbs of Seattle, Washington. We believe in being green, but like many others I'm sure, we don't always act as we should. We recycle, we try to buy local (absolutely love the weekly farmers market), I work from home, my wife commutes via bus and we try to be energy concious, but we have lots of room to expand.
Housing
We live in a big house. Ok, 'big' is a relative term. I've read that the average family of four now lives in a 2200 sqare foot house. Ours is almost twice that. We didn't design it or build it, but we did buy it. Yes, it is a lot of space to heat and to cool (well, not much cooling since we live in the Pacific Northwest, PNW). Is it right to talk about being green and live in a house bigger than our needs? I think, yes! This house was already built before we purchased it. Someone was going to buy it and live in it. Why not someone who will try to live lightly in it? Buy purchasing it, did we encourage the builder to make more of the same? Maybe. I do have to admit, it is a very well insulated, efficient house. Let's be realistic, more 'big' houses are going to be built. Let's hope that they are all built to be efficient. Yes, I do believe smaller is better, but I don't want to discourage anyone from making the effort to live a more green lifestlye. Better someone reading this blog live in a big home than a person less informed looking only for comfort at any cost.
LightingMy wife hates Compact Fluorescent Lights (CFLs). Well, she hates them in the bathroom because she says that when she is putting on make-up, the lighting is too industrial and not natural. I've managed to talk her into accepting them in most other locations. Where we want to dim the lights, we've stayed with incandescent bulbs. It's a trade off. All exterior lights are CFLs. Any light that stays on for long periods of time, like my office lights, are CFLs. I'm slowly working my way around the house changing bulbs that aren't dimmed to CFLs
TransportationWe own 2 cars and a truck...but one of the cars is a Neighborhood Electric Vehicle (NEV), basically a glorified golfcart. As I mentioned above, my wife commutes to work via county bus but she does drive to the bus stop which is 3 miles away. I work from home so I have no commute, but I am responsible for dropping off/picking up our sons at daycare and school. School is 1 mile away and daycare is 1/2 mile. On non-rainy days I pickup the little guy from daycare using the Radio Flyer red wagon, otherwise I use the NEV for my tasks.
Living outside of Seattle requires my NEV to be much more car like than golfcart like. Rain and cold weather would be big deterrents to its use if it didn't offer reasonable comfort. After looking for a NEV that would seat 4 people and manage to negotiate the hilly terrain, I settled for a Dynasty IT sedan.
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