Shedding Those Pesky 500 Kilowatts

While I certainly cannot claim to be an environmental maven, I do consider myself a logical, socially-minded individual who derives a dangerous amount of satisfaction from saving cash on the boring stuff that you just can’t get avoid sacrificing your hard earned cash on. Like electricity. And water. And gas. I mean, how boring can it get? You can’t even entertain yourself with comparison shopping. Now, shoe shopping is a different story. There are green ones and gold ones and pointy and peep toe. That’s some good, worthwhile shopping. But I digress.

The point is that reducing your electric, water and gas usage is a good thing in many, very measurable ways. I know this not only because I am a smarter than a doorknob, but because I recently attended a pitch at my office given by a rep from the University of Arkansas Applied Sustainability Center. Basically, you spend a good 10 minutes signing up for an Earth Aid account at www.earthaid.net. The website downloads your utility usage information for the past year (less if you’ve lived there a shorter time) and, if you’re me, you get to be astonished and ashamed that you’re more than 3.2 times above the national average. Oh, the unbearable shame…

I bet you’re thinking that the crazy high numbers were all part of my diabolical plan to create a high baseline so that I could earn extra points for my dramatic improvement. You might be right and you might be wrong. Either way, I recommend checking it out. My plan is to track our usage, brag about my highly evolved sense of environmental responsibility and spend the money I saved on a new pair of shoes. A nice give and take in my opinion – my carbon emissions shrink and my shoe collection grows.