Raising Conservation

Yesterday's entry asked you to comment with your energy-saving resolutions for 2007. Here are some of mine and a link to an article about how people in Japan are saving energy.

My steps towards decreased energy consumption include:

Continuing to take the bus to work on days I do not have to travel out of the office, and managing my schedule so that my car days are fewer and bus days more;

Switching my food buying priorities from organic products to locally produced products. In Michael Pollan's most recent book, The Omnivore's Dilemma, he shares some shocking contradictions about the organic industry and how much of organic food production is anything but sound conservation (like shipping fresh organic raspberries from Chile to Michigan in January instead of just letting these goodies be a seasonal treat... or even shipping carrots from California in September when we have plenty of our own here in the upper Midwest);

Getting more calories and nutrition out of the garden this year;

Replacing the old fridge this spring (replacing an older refrigerator is usually the most productive way to reduce electric consumption in the average household, and can often pay for itself in five years or less);

And much to my family's chagrin, continuing to be the proverbial grumpy old man who wanders about the house turning off lights and muttering something about pennies.

In yesterday's World Business section, the New York Times featured an overview of Kiminobu Kimura's energy conservation habits. Mr. Kimura is a fairly typical middle-class citizen with a spouse and two children. Yet he probably uses a quarter of the energy in his daily life than the average American.

While Mr. Kimura has access to some of the world's most cutting edge energy conservation devices, much of his conservation comes not from stuff and gizmos, but from daily lifestyle and habits.

You can read more about Mr. Kimura's strategies in The Land of Rising Conservation in the January 6, 2007 New York Times.

And don't forget to share your own strategies.