Back in April, I made the post – Can I reduce fuel consumption by 10% ? – where I asked myself that question. Since then, I’ve been trying different techniques to use less fuel and it has worked, without too much effort. I plan to log my efforts, successes and failures, and to seek your advice on how to improve. To do this, I’m setting up a new “Category” called “Use 10 Percent Less” (you can see the categories in the list on the right of the page – I’m trying to clean up the categories as well).
I’ve started to think more widely than just fuel consumption and I’m including usage and pollution in general. It’s clear that we consume, pollute and use too much.
The Insight of a 5th Grader
I found this nice post from back in 2009 on the site www.wastelesswisconsin.org and was touched by a couple of the comments made by 5th graders who were asked “What does the environment mean to you?”. In particular, I like these two responses;
I care about animals, trees, plants, water, and bugs, and insects. But the most important thing is not to pollute because it might hurt the environment and the plants might die, also the animals.
and
To help the environment you should recycle, dont pollute, and use less energy! Also if you see garbage on the ground just pick it up! If you do stuff to help the environment you will help make the earth a better place!
So, 5th graders can see that we should consume, pollute and use less. I think everyone knows this, deep inside, but somehow we forget and ignore it (partly because we’re constantly bombarded with advertising and propaganda telling us that we must consume more).
Why the target of 10% less?
Cutting out consumption of something completely is often just not possible, or at least very difficult, whereas the concept of using just 10% less seems rather modest and easy. I find it much easier to think about a plan to consume, pollute and use less if “less” means just 10%.
So my plan is to track a few things where I believe I can consume, pollute and use less to verify that I reach this modest 10% commitment and, having achieved that, start anew on trying to achieve another 10%. At any point in time I’ll be only working on a 10% reduction, so it should be fairly easy but, over time, the results could be very significant.
Ten percent might sound small but if the whole would could make a 10% reduction in consumption, pollution and usage in the next year that would be an enormous benefit and relief to the world.
My personal commitments to consume, pollute and use less
Here are the things I’m currently tracking and working on;
- driving less kilometers per month
- using less fuel per 100 kms
- flying less kilometers per month
- using less plastic
I am tracking my efforts and will either make individual posts (Use 10 Percent Less category) or create some separate pages (haven’t decided what’s best yet) to log my results. Trying to learn how to consume, pollute and use less is interesting. I’m trying different strategies and seeing what works and what doesn’t.
Can you help me?
I’d like your advice and the benefit of your experience. I’m searching the internet for ideas, but I’m sure you’ve got a lot of knowledge that could help me. At the very least, please offer me a little support. Thanks a million.
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