Earth Hour 2012…a heavy load…
Imagine that: Our NM Senator Jeff Bingaman suggested…
high gas prices are not because of a lack of domestic production, nor because of environmental regulations…
He said the most important thing to cut the cost at the pump is to find ways to use less oil.
Read more: http://www.koat.com/news/30654995/detail.html#ixzz1oquIQjfG
Using less: what a novel idea. Well, no, not really. In 2006, the World Wildlife Federation in Sydney, Australia, held the first Earth Hour event. From there, each year, it grew worldwide. In 2011, Earth Hour saw hundreds of millions of people across 135 countries switch off for an hour.
(From the About page on the Earth Hour website)
One might start with a symbolic act. Turn off lights for an hour at 8:30PM (local time) on March 31, 2012. And imagine a cascade of lights going off, hour by hour, time zone by time zone, as 8:30PM proceeds around the globe.
Probably, too, imagine them coming back on an hour later in the next swath: not much stamina in energy saving. A razor-blade of dark-er-ness 15° wide. So to speak.
We’re testing our energy stamina, digging through the slab where our tub used to be. We found a measly two inches of insulation under the slab—not the greatest quality foam, at that. Certainly a target for improvement when building a shower basin.
We’re in the midst of our last remodeling project: the hall bathroom. There, I most often reign on my regal throne and peruse Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader. The new and improved throne will boast dual-flush, by the numbers. Fancy-ass. (Get it?)
Now, I have to learn to grope for a danged button on top of the tank instead of the familiar handle at the right. Or left, depending on whether I’m standing. Which I don’t. And I know, from experience with mi esposa’s similar throne, there’s no reassuring
whoosh—just a delayed guttural gulp.
We heard there’s a black market
for the low-efficiency toilets that are against our local code. Our discard went to the landfill. I reckon we’re just not creative enough to make it a lawn ornament.
When the halogen lights come on in the new bathroom, it’ll be a real pleasure to have a sink counter 35 inches high instead of the 30 inches built into the original house. (Why’d they do that? What a literal pain in the back for someone of normal height.) And improved insulation may lower our heating bills and make the room temperatures a bit more me-friendly.
Earth Hour Plus. (No, not that other Plus
.) Plus
means, what to do after the lights come back on.
Doing more. It’s a heavy load—the Plus
part, that is. Sometimes like 5 feet by 3 feet by 8 inches of concrete slab, removed with drill, saw, hammer, chisels, and shovel.
Maybe I’ll sit down and think about it.
¿k?