If environmentalists are like flowers, then I’m a dirt clod.
I have used toxic paint, relished long showers, left the lights burning in rooms long abandoned, and run the air conditioning when I could have opened a window.
I’ve done laundry with only three items, screwed in a 100-watt bulb when 60 watts would suffice, driven when I could have walked, and dumped chlorine bleach straight down the drain.
Now, the ice caps are melting, and it’s all my fault. Al Gore says so.
I recently woke up from my blissful state of maximum consumption and noticed that everything around me is green. Not just because spring is here, but because green is what everyone is talking about. Shelter magazines are launching green editions. Home builders are hosting green seminars. I’ve even heard talk of painting the White House green – with low-volatile-organic-compound paint. A Green House seems apropos for the soon-to-be-installed Green Party, which will win for the first time in the next election thanks to a certain “Inconvenient Truth” posed by Al Gore (who really is a member of the Green Party, but won’t admit it).
So this spring, I’m turning over a new leaf – a green leaf, possibly from a bamboo tree, since bamboo is a sustainable wood that can grow 3 feet in one day.
Realizing recently that I am helpless in the face of my addiction to water, energy and chemicals (namely those in paint), I knew I couldn’t detox alone. I’d need a support group. I decided to reach out to a green book, “The Earthwise Home Manual: Eco-Friendly Interior Design and Home Improvement,” by Kristina Detjen (Green Home Publishing, 2006). This clarified my consumption crimes, and deepened my resolve to get green and sober.
Then, I called Detjen and requested a 12-step program for planet junkies. I also asked for help from John Dunnihoo, general manager of West Coast Green, the country’s largest residential green building trade show.
I confessed to both of them that I am skeptical of the whole green movement. I still remember the Seventies when people talked to their plants to help them grow. That was just bizarre. But I do want to do my part to preserve the planet and all that.
Detjen and Dunnihoo both graciously addressed my skepticism. (Denial is common among planet abusers, they said.) And they took on the challenge of making me greener at home. Detjen let slip that by going green I could also save some green – money, that is. Now she really has my attention.
Marni Jameson is a nationally syndicated columnist who lives in the Denver area. Contact her through marnijameson.com.
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Going green and saving it too
Green building experts Kristina Detjen and John Dunnihoo helped devise this Twelve Step Program for going green at home, and saving some green at the same time.
1. Admit that you are powerless over your need to consume wastefully.
2. Give over to the higher power of your global community. Acknowledge that only through collective effort will we restore the planet to a balanced state.
3. Agree to replace all light bulbs in your home with compact fluorescent bulbs. Accept that though CFLs cost more, they last 10 times longer and use one-fourth the electricity.
4. Commit to using your home’s programmable thermostat the way it was intended. If you don’t have one, buy one. Promise to never again run the air conditioning when there’s a breeze outside.
5. Dedicate yourself to only running full loads of laundry, and use the coolest water possible. Don’t over-dry clothes, and hang them out to dry more often.
6. Search for the Energy Star label when buying a new appliance. (This is the Environmental Protection Agency’s stamp of approval for energy efficiency.)
7. Use more cloth napkins and towels than paper ones.
8. Fully acknowledge the limits of our water supply. Scrape plates rather then rinse them when loading the dishwasher. Install a drip system for watering outdoor plants, and put a water-saving device (a capped jug of sand) in the toilet tank.
9. Choose paints with low or no VOCs (volatile organic compounds). Accept that they may go on runnier, but they won’t hurt the planet or give you a paint hangover.
10. Recycle everything you possibly can. If you don’t know how, check earth911.org.
11. Strive to repair, refinish or restore furniture you have rather than buy more. Better yet: buy antiques.
12. Relapse is part of recovery: If you fall off the green wagon, just get back on.
