Earth Day

How am I doing this Earth day? Let's take a look at ways I'm trying to save the Earth:

The Good:

• I live in a high-density neighborhood, where I can walk to work and food, and only drive a short distance to a grocery store.
• I live in a 1 bedroom apartment. I think this has a huge impact since I'm saving energy, and I'm using less resources that would have gone into furnishing and maintaining a larger space. I'm not anti-materialist; I just think the less stuff you can get away with, the better. It puts pressure on stores to carry less stuff, and ultimately for businesses to produce less stuff. 
• I use a low flow shower head. Yeah, yeah. 
• Sustainable design intent. I'd like to do more sustainable design, and I occasionally advocate for more sustainable design. Our client is not adverse to sustainable design but spending money on it. Ultimately, I think this will be a very sustainable building as regards to longevity. If your building is LEED Platinum Card Plus, and it gets replaced in 50 years, it's far, far less sustainable than a joe blow building that lasts 100 years. 
• Advocacy- I try to engage people about what sustainability is and means. My volunteering with Everlasting Marks is part of this. I intrude on my great-uncle's facebook threads.
• I drive a Prius, which is ok. Uses less gas, great; but it still has a huge environmental impact in the amount of rare metals that go into the battery. It's a step in the right direction though.
• I participate in recycled goods cycle. I go to used clothing stores, used bookstores, and donated items stores. I bring stuff to these places instead of throwing it away when possible.
• I don't eat a lot of meat. Our diet tends to be more grains and veg with a little meat in there. Meat, especially beef, has a huge environmental cost. It's a huge suck on water, and it contributes to atmospheric gases.

The Bad

• I love to travel, which means I fly. Aircraft are huge polluters. The amount of CO2 saved by planes not after the volcano eruption in Iceland far outweighed the amount of CO2 introduced to the atmosphere by the volcano.
• I like Sushi. I eat it often. The highest quality fish are usually wild caught, and the fish trade for sushi is driving some fish stocks into the ground.
• I'm a bit of a technophile, although I'm working hard to fight it now that I know the heavy environmental costs of disposable high tech gadgetry. 
• I shop at companies with questionable practices, and generally I'm reluctant to pay a large margin for a more sustainable product over a less sustainable one.
• I own a car and live with someone who also owns a car. Two cars is probably overkill considering I walk to work. 

So that's not so bad. Hope everyone else had a good earth day