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Light bulb moment: Turn it off

March 1, 2008

sequence-1.jpgIn the pitch blackness of her bathroom in the dead of night, a light bulb came on for Robin Rittenhouse. If she could instinctively use the bathroom in the middle of the night, why then did she routinely turn the light on when she used the bathroom in the middle of the day?

Once she realized she didn’t need to turn the light on every time she used the bathroom, she started noticing other times she could flip off the switch. Like the oven light she always used to make the coffee, she didn’t really need it.

“It’s a small thing, I know,” she said. “But if enough people did small things, maybe it would be something.”

Robin describes herself and her husband, David, as always having been concerned about the environment. But as information about global warming became increasingly more obvious, she said, their concern evolved into action.

They’d read and heard other people’s stories of sacrifice and hardship in the name of the environment, but they wanted to find a different way. They read “Radical Simplicity: Small Footprints on a Finite Earth,” to get started.

Some choices were natural. As a handyman by trade, David has always been more inclined to fix something as a opposed to replacing it.

“He’s real big into mending things,” Robin said. “If you break a plate, you glue it back together.”

Other changes have taken more work.

Although the couple routinely evaluate what they can do in their everyday lives to reduce their consumption, they also set aside one day a month to live as low-impact as they can.

On those days, they try not to use the computer, the car, even the phone. They’ve already turned off their cable, using their television to watch an occasional movie.

The only thing they really miss about not having TV, she said, are the tennis matches David enjoyed watching.

“It gives you a chance to realize how you amuse yourself,” Robin said. “We read. We have millions of projects. I knit.”

One of her amusements, Robin said, is looking for new ways to save energy.

“It’s fun to think about how I can save, how I can cut back,” she said. “How I can tread lightly on the Earth.”

She often shares with others the decisions she and her husband have made, and the most important thing she shares with them is that it’s not as difficult as she thought it would be.

“It’s not like we have a low standard of living,” she said. “I don’t feel deprived at all.”

In the winter, they keep the heat turned down to about 60 or 65 degrees.

“I wear a sweater. It doesn’t feel like a hardship,” she reasons. “It’s no big deal.”

She drives a compact car that gets 40 miles to the gallon. David rides his bike to the grocery store.

“I don’t need a Hummer,” she said. “It’s not a deprivation.”

They try to use the wood-burning stove as often as possible. Before the Angora fire burned the woods behind their home, they used to take walks and gather wood as they went.

Now they’ll collect wood leftover when the power company cuts down trees determined to be growing dangerously close to the lines. They also collect logs from the slash piles left by the Forest Service.

When the wood stove is burning, she said, she’ll often cook their meal on that stove rather than turning on the oven.

“I also try to make things that don’t require much cooking,” she said.

To do that, she frequents the local farmers market, and grows what little of a garden is possible in South Lake Tahoe in her backyard.

It usually doesn’t bear much fruit, “but this year, we got some nice lettuce and arrugula,” she said.

In addition to cutting back on their energy usage, they also try to consume less, Robin said.

As the Angora fire — which burned 3,200 acres of forest and consumed 254 homes — neared their home this summer, the couple was forced to evacuate.

In taking inventory of their possessions, Robin said, they realized they had accumulated too much.

“I realized I don’t need new clothes,” she said, “just because they’re more interesting or in style.”

She’s not sure, she admits, that what they’re doing is making a difference. But she hopes it is.

“I’d like to think that my footprint is less than most other people’s,” she says.
She pauses.

“There’s that light David left on.”

She turns it off.

Tips suggested in “An Inconvenient Truth” to lessen your daily impact:
• Choose energy-efficient lighting: Lighting accounts for one-fifth of all the electricity consumed in the U.S.
• Conserve hot water: You can cut energy use by setting your water temperature to 120 degrees or less.
• Drive less: You’ll save one pound of carbon dioxide for every mile you don’t drive.
• Recycle more: You can save 2,400 pounds of carbon dioxide by recycling just half of your household waste.
• Check your tires: Keeping your tires inflated properly can improve your gas mileage by more than 3 percent. Every gallon of gasoline saved keeps 20 pounds of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.
• Adjust your thermostat: Moving your thermostat just 2 degrees can save about 2,000 pounds of carbon dioxide a year.

Related posts: [ Alternative light: A bright idea? ] [ Ways of going green ] [ Tour the Cedar House ] [ Global moves to reduce incandescents ] [ Environment takes center stage leading up to Earth Day ] 

Written by Teri Vance · Filed Under Feature #2, Most viewed, Nuestro Tahoe 

Comments

One Response to “Light bulb moment: Turn it off”

  1. » Light bulb moment: Turn it off on March 1st, 2008 3:13 pm

    […] himi wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptShe drives a compact car that gets 40 miles to the gallon. David rides his bike to the grocery store. “I don’t need a Hummer,” she said. “It’s not a deprivation.” They try to use the wood-burning stove as often as possible. … […]

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