As soon as I got home from work today, I started watching via Netflix (yes yes I re-subscribed...) and was immediately enthralled. This family spent an entire year attempting to eliminate their carbon footprints. Oh and they live New York City. UH HUH! They did things like get rid of the TV, stopped eating out and buying any kind of packaged food, committed to no riding in cars or traveling by plane, stopped making garbage, used cloth diapers (yuck) and... for 6 months, they GAVE UP ELECTRICITY IN THEIR HOME. Uh huh... yeah. I'm talkin' lots of candlelit dinners. I'm talkin' weird makeshift refrigerators (that ultimately didn't work). And they're not like hippie alternative New Yorkers, they're like... the real deal. Fifth Avenue residing, designer clothes wearing professionals.
The film is so good. SO good. And you know what? It kind of slapped me in the face. I try to be "green". I carry reusable shopping bags, I rarely buy bottled water (and only when it's my only option), I recycle as much as possible (my apt doesn't recycle glass and b/c I can't bear the thought of just throwing it away, I save it and either drop it off at Whole Foods or take it to my friends' houses who have recyling bins), I never brush my teeth with the water running, and I turn off the lights as much as possible. And yet...
I find that I've gotten lazy. I use way more ziploc bags than I should, I create an enormous amount of garbage for one person (and two pets), I subscribe to way too many magazines (half of which I don't end up reading), I keep the TV on when I'm not watching it, I use baby wipes and cleaning wipes like they're going out of style (OCD much?), I stopped buying recycled toilet paper (b/c it kind of feels like sandpaper), and I just... I got lazy. It's really easy to do that in this capitalist, consumerist society, especially when we're so far removed from the effect of all this consumerism and waste. This film reminded me of just how important it is to think twice about my carbon footprint.
I'm inspired, and I hope you will watch the film and be inspired, too.
5 comments:
one of the easiest switches is replacing the cleaning wipes with reusable white rags. Have a huge pile of them, one in a container for nicely folded clean ones and one container for used ones. Then you just wash them and voila! You can be OCD and environmentally friendly...
this is coming from another slightly OCDer living with a very OCD partner! haha. We clean and reclean and scrunch our noses at the possibility of unseen enemy germs in our living environment
I've never even heard of this movie! Adding it to my netflix queue right now.
I hope you have a great weekend, my dear.
thank you for the suggestion...i'm adding this to my netflix queue. and it is so hard to be green all the time, i agree. i've started walking more and driving less which has been really, really nice. i think it's made me less stressed (cuz LA traffic will drive u nuts) and appreciate being outside more.
Sounds tres inspiring! I am going to check it out.
I, too, try to be green but I'm lazy in certain areas. I could use a good kick in the pants and this sounds like the perfect shot of motivation!
This is one of the best posts that I’ve ever seen; you may include some more ideas in the same theme. I’m still waiting for some interesting thoughts from your side in your next post.
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