A Rant About Earth Hour

Last night Americans sat in the dark doing nothing for one whole hour. Woo-hoo. While many hailed it as a great effort in fighting global warming or at least a great statement that Americans WANT to fight global warming, I thought it was an absolute insult.

I'll be honest. I am SCARED SHITLESS about global warming. As I noted today on my personal blog, the USDA has had to redo its maps of plant hardiness ranges because of our changing climate. Scary? YEAH. So what do we do about it - sit in the dark for an hour? How totally... meaningless. And yet, what can we each as individuals really DO to combat global warming? Oh sure we can change our lightbulbs or go vegetarian, but seriously, an individual's ability to fight global warming is severely hampered by the amount of money in his or her bank account.

A few years ago, I bought a house. I no longer own it, but buying a home was an exercise in how badly sustainability meshes with wise financial choices. I knew I wasn't going to live in the house forever so it had to be something I could eventually sell. I found an adorable home with no driveway, no air conditioning, and an enormous backyard. The house was 100 years old and it *did* have central heat. It was fine for me, really. I loved all the land, including trees and a stream, and I looked forward to hanging bird feeders and gardening. And the house was in Wisconsin, so I didn't feel I needed air conditioning. Even on the hottest days in the summer I was plenty content to walk around naked instead of turning on the A/C. But it was a bad investment. How was I going to sell a house without any air conditioning? And even if I bought the place, every penny I had was going into the down payment so there's just about no way I could've afforded solar panels. So I didn't buy it.

All in all, even though I really needed very little space for myself, I was pushed into buying something larger than I needed. I ended up in a 3 bedroom, 2.5 bathroom condo. The kitchen, pantry, master bed and bath, and one car garage worked out great for me, but the extra 2 bedrooms and 1.5 bathrooms just sat empty the entire time I lived there. Well, I take that back. I put my cats' litterboxes in the half bath. I never used the A/C but if I had, I would have had to cool all of those extra rooms. When I turned on the heat in the winter, I had to heat all of the extra rooms. I nearly bought a 2 bedroom condo instead but I was advised by my realtor that the 2 bedrooms were about 10 times harder to sell than the 3 bedrooms.

What I gained by buying a condo - decreased risk and maintenance costs - was countered by the decrease in sustainability of my living situation. I couldn't garden other than a few herbs I grew in pots. And my compost was against the condo association's rules so I had to hide it in the garage. I didn't even bother asking about a laundry line. With my $90 a month in condo fees, I purchased the services (that I didn't want) of somebody mowing my lawn (that I didn't want) and probably putting all kinds of chemicals on it too.

The one good thing about that condo was its proximity to a bike path. All summer long, I biked to work during the week and biked the 12 miles to get downtown Madison, WI on the weekends. Oh how I miss that bike path! I'm driving a Prius now, but I'm driving. If I still had a bike path near me, I would definitely use it. Yet there are no bike paths. And what really got me mad was a sign I saw over a nearby highway last year that said "Bike to work day tomorrow!" I wanted to give that stupid sign the finger. How the heck am I supposed to bike to work if nobody builds any bike paths? Especially here in S. California, where you practically can't get anywhere without using a highway. You can bike on the road. You can't bike on the highway.

So how much money went into publicizing and promoting that hour in the dark yesterday, and how much energy did it save? Because no matter how motivated anyone gets about saving the earth, it's impossible for us to do it if the government (or somebody else with very deep pockets) doesn't pitch in and help. Next time someone feels like funding a major green initiative, they should take their money and put it into building bike paths or helping homeowners afford solar panels. They should put it into helping farmers go organic, or helping farmers markets get EBT readers so that food stamp recipients can shop at the farmers' market. We don't need publicity stunts, we need solutions.

(Photo credit: Jalalspages on Flickr)