In the June Zogby American Consumer newsletter, they ask the question, “What would you give up to go “Green”?” Most people answered, “Not much.”
But there were some surprising details and some great ideas for saving energy in the questions asked like these:
All of these save energy, but which ones gives us the most bang for the buck?
In my opinion, this is the order of most important ones to give up first.
Becoming vegetarian
Drying clothes outside
Driving a car
Turning off the AC
Paper and plastic bags
Meat production uses a lot of energy. Mostly because it takes a lot of food and water to feed an animal. I don’t even like having a cat because I have to feed it and let it out. I cannot imagine taking care of a cow or all the chickens I eat in a year. (Yes, I am not a full time vegetarian. I like eating dead animals every once in a while.) But I know feed is not cheap and I could eat a lot of cornbread, tortillas and even corn on the cob with all of the feed I would have to buy to get just one steak. I could probably also power my car for a year too with all the ethanol that could be produced.
Right now it is summertime and I do have the AC on. Nothing sounds sillier to me than drying clothes in the dryer (heating up all that air) and running the AC to counteract that. In the survey, most suburbanites are not for drying their clothes outside. Part of that has to do with real estate value; I know for us our neighborhood covenants forbid drying clothes outside.
With corn prices now following crude oil prices as far as price per BTU is concerned, how we eat becomes more important. A meal of grains and vegetables can be just as filling and can actually reduce our need for foreign oil. And as more and more ethanol plants come on line this will become even more true.
