Chewing The Cud

Who hasn’t been in this situation: Eating with a group of friends, the conversation on fire, everyone’s finished and yet no one is moving? You know you have things to do and places to be, but still you sit. At last, someone makes the move, and the whole table springs up as if the chairs were pinching their occupants.

I feel like this scenario is applicable to the world’s dependancy on oil and the reluctance to move away from the black gold to greener alternatives. All that is needed is for a nation to make the move, convert 100% to green energy, and then poof, other nations take notice. The Guardian has an article highlighting a few of the countries that are trying to be that impetus. Now it is up to the rest of the world to take notice and do the same.

BBC has an interesting article today on the incandescent light bulb and its wastefulness.

From the article:

It has been estimated that if every household in the US replaced just three of its incandescent light bulbs with energy-saving designs and used them for five hours per day, it would reduce emissions of carbon dioxide by 23 million tonnes, reduce electricity demand by the equivalent of 11 coal-fired power stations and save $1.8bn.
Given that investing $450m could save $1.8bn, it is hard to understand why anyone would still choose incandescent bulbs.

It seems like the big drawback to going green is that it requires us to modify our way of life. Hopefully we will begin to see that there are easy ways, such as replacing our traditional light bulbs with energy-saving ones, to reduce our energy consumption without affecting our lifestyles. So go ahead, make the change. Your wallet and your world will thank you in the long run…