Simple Living: Simplify and Reduce

Now, some answers to frequently asked questions. If you have a question *not* answered here, email us and we’ll try and come up with an answer.

Q. Who can join?

A. Anyone is welcome to join in. If you are just starting to cut your emissions, this might be a tough project to start with - or maybe not, if you like a challenge. If you’d like something simpler you could check out Sharon’s 52 week beginning energy cut program at her blog casaubonsbook.blogspot.com or join Crunchy Chicken’s Energy Cut week here: http://crunchychicken.blogspot.com/search/label/low%20impact%20week But you are more than welcome.

Q. But I’ve already cut my energy use by half! I can’t cut 90% more!

A. Don’t panic. You only have to cut energy use by 90% over the average American’s use. Not over what you use now. If you use half the gas of an average American, great - you are already 1/2 way there!

Q. I can’t possibly do all that - can I still join in?

A. Absolutely. The goal here is to make the deepest cuts we can, and if someone can’t do it in every category, or reach 90% in any category, you’ll still know you’ve done everything you can.

Q. I can’t start on June 1. Can I join later?

A. Yes. We want you whenever you are ready. Just join in.

Q. How do I know how much I have to cut?

A. The first thing you do is establish a baseline - for example, if the average American uses 500 gallons of gasoline each year, you need to figure out how much you use. You can guesstimate a bit - how much capacity does your gas tank have? How often do you fill up in a week or a month? Multiply that by the relevant figures to find out where you are now. We’ve listed what would constitute a 90% cut.

Q. Can people outside America join in?

A. Of course, and welcome!! You can participate 2 ways. The first is that you can use the numbers we’ve established (you’ll have to do metric conversions if you come from one of those countries that doesn’t use archaic, non-standard methods of measuring things ;-), which for many non-Americans will mean a smaller proportional cut. Or, you can find your own national averages, and then make an appropriate cut. Best estimate for the US, Canada and Australia is 90%. Most Western European Countries are 80-85%, as is Japan and NZ. The rest, you’d have to do your own research for, but we’re glad to help. Send us an email if you need a hand.

Q. So we’re just supposed to cut our emissions just like that down by 90%

A. No. We’re spending the next year, getting our consumption down by 90% - it won’t happen immediately. It will take time for all of us to acquire the tools we need, learn the techniques, find the resources. We’re going to spend the next year helping each other find a way to make as many cuts as possible.

Q. Is this just for a year?

A. No. The goal here is to make this a lifetime project. The one year deadline is to help us figure out how to make this work for each individual family.

Q. Are these numbers per person? Do kids count?

A. Whenever possible, I’ve listed the numbers per person, but unfortunately, our government compiles many statistics about domestic usage by household, rather than per person. So when household numbers were all that was available, that’s what we’ve got. Children count as people (usually ;-), so if the numbers are per person, you multiply by the number of people in your household. If the numbers are per household, the combined impact of everyone in your house would be put together to get that number.

Q. But that’s not fair - there are more of us, or less of us than an average household.

A. Well, but it evens out. Some of these things give the advantage to people with more family members, sometimes to those with less.

Q. How do I measure my water usage?

A. If you have a water bill, you can look at that. For appliances like dishwashers and washing machines, they generally say in the manual how much water they use. If you don’t have a water bill, the best way is to figure out how much you use for each task by putting a basin in to collect the water, or stopping up the sink/tub and then measuring out the water. So, for example, you might take a five minute shower and measure the water you use for that - and then you’ll know how much a five minute shower takes, and don’t have to do it again. The same with things like brushing teeth, washing dishes, etc…

Q. Do Pets get a food and water allotment?

A. Yes. Depending on size, a dog could require up to a gallon of water a day. So 1 gallon per dog, 1/3 gallon per cat. Less if you have a teeny weeny dog. Livestock should get what they need - it varies depending on the size of the animal. I doubt anyone here is bathing their cows daily, so we’ll assume you are using the water you need for your home animals. Try and minimize waste, though - for example, putting a bucket in a used tire will usually prevent animals from overturning their water.

As for food - I would say that it comes out of your processed food allotment, or you should seek out a local diet. The thing is, most current pet animal diets are very, very energy intensive, and reliant to industrial meat processing. So getting our animals down to a sustainable diet is really important. I think the same is true as much as possible for livestock diets - local, sustainably grown, ideally some of it should come from your own garden.

Q. What about irrigating your garden?

A. We’re not going to give you an absolute number on this one - climate varies so much that if I did, it wouldn’t be fair to those who live in dry places. And research suggests that even in the dryest of places, growing your own is vastly more energy and water efficient than buying food. So the deal with gardens is this.

1. First source should be your own greywater, and own collected rainwater. These should be used whenever possible instead of groundwater.
2. Second, use irrigation water at the minimum needed, using things like mulch, night watering, and drip irrigation to minimize evaporation. Don’t use sprinklers.
3. Don’t water automatically unless you live in a very dry place. Watering should happen only when absolutely necessary.

Q. I don’t have a scale - how do I measure my garbage?

A. Someone you know is bound to have one. Borrow it, and weigh a bag or two. Once you know how much 1 bag generally weighs, you won’t have to do it again unless you start throwing out lead weights. Just use the same size bag every time.

Q. What about recycling?

A. We have not been able to locate any reliable figures about the average amount of recyling people produce - I think it varies too much, and some communities don’t accept everything. So everyone gets the same recycling allotment as garbage allotment - .45lbs. But while we really want to minimize packaging (some recycling processes actually use more energy and create more emissions than making new), recycling is still preferrable to making garbage. So if you have to choose, recycle!

Q. Why are some things unlimited?

A. Rainwater is unlimited because catching water off your roof is a really good thing. Used goods that would otherwise go into landfills are also a really good thing. The idea is to encourage the use of the lowest impact items, and discourage the use of high impact ones.

Q. What about giving things to charity?

A. That’s up to you. Charitable monetary donations don’t count in your consumer spending - our goal is to use our savings to up our charitable donations. Whether stuff you buy to donate counts is sort of up to you. Those things have real emissions costs, but sometimes maybe that’s not the most important thing. I think I will count mine, personally, but that’s your choice. Just let us know what you are doing.

Q. What about medical needs?

A. We have left medical costs out of this equation. Again, this is up to you. If you want to calculate the energy impact of your medical needs and cut, feel free, but since many people have serious health issues, we don’t want to encourage anyone to do anything that would hurt them.

Q. My husband/wife/partner/kids don’t want to participate. What do I do?

A. Ultimately, you can’t make anyone but young kids do anything - persuasion is good, but sometimes that fails. If you can’t get them excited about the project, then focus on the things you are in control of - yourself, and the things you do in your family. If you have reluctant older children (10 and up) you might try getting them excited by telling them that Sharon is writing a book about sustainability and families, and would be interested in interviewing kids who have participated in this challenge for her book. So they’d get to be kind of famous if they participate! (Email sharon at jewishfarmer@gmail.com if your child wants to be interviewed - obviously, all materials will be sent to parents for screening first!)

Q. What about school buses?

A. Ask about the school bus’s mileage, and calculate the trip, divided by the number of kids on the bus.

Q. Can I share my allotment with my husband/kids/housemate?

A. Of course. Final calculations are by household -so yes, if you stay home more, you can give some of your share of the gas to your son who goes to school. And this is important for a lot of reasons - one of them is that some people - infants, the elderly, the disabled - may really need a little more in one category or another, and the fairest thing is for some of us to use a little less still so that they can have their needs met.

Q. What about work?

A. Well, we recognize that you may have limited ability to affect your job’s energy consumption, but you should still calculate it. You might consider calculating your, say, water, electrical and heat usage 3 ways - home, work and combined, so that you know if you’ve managed the home reduction. And if you can convince your company or boss (or you are the boss) to get serious about energy reductions, do so! At a minimum you should be able to control things like food (bringing it from home) and personal garbage (say, by bringing a towel to work to avoid using paper to dry your hands, or a reusable cup to avoid using styrofoam).

Q. Why so little energy credit for things like solar?

A. Because solar and other alternative energies have large embodied energy costs. That is, it takes a lot of energy to manufacture them - and a lot of other resources, like water and metals. Yes, we believe in renewables - but they are not a magic bullet.

Q. What about the stuff I have to buy for this project? How will I get my consumption down and still do things like put in rainbarrels and insulation?

A. We’ve decided to grant everyone a 50% exemption on items that reduce your overall impact. Among other reasons, it is simply too urgent that we all get prepared and ready to live the low-impact life for the long term - we don’t want people suffering because they didn’t acquire what they needed while it was still available. The deal is this:

1. You have to actually use them *INSTEAD* of the thing you used before - that is, it only counts when you buy a clothesline if you use it instead of the dryer, not just as an occasional supplement
2. Only buy new if you can’t find it free or used, or if there’s some compelling reason to get a new one (that is, because the new models are much more energy efficient).
3. Whenever possible, buy things with long lifespans - choose items you will be using in the long term.
4. Make sure that you are actually getting a reduction - sometimes when you consider all the energy it takes to make the thing, you might not save much at all. We’re working with a participant to come up with reliable numbers on many items.

We should note that we assume that most of us will make some major purchases over the course of this year - that’s part of the process.

Q. What about consumer goods that are locally and sustainably produced?

A. Those also get a 50% reduction.

Q. What about educational materials and/or tuition?

A. In any sane nation, education, which benefits the country as much as the individual, would be free. College tuition is totally exempt. Books are counted as usual - 100% for new books that don’t help you reduce your emissions, 50% of cost for new books that do help you reduce your emissions, 10% for used, unlimited for free, scavenged, donated or rescued from landfill books.

Homeschooling materials fall under the 50% reduction category - keeping your kid home from school saves much more energy than it costs.

Q. Doesn’t calculating consumer goods in dollars mean that we have an incentive to use cheaper, conventional (non-recycled, non-organic, non-sustainable things)?

A. Yes, it technically does, but we’re going to assume that everyone who wants to do this already buys the recycled toilet paper and the organic oranges. I haven’t even included a category for the other stuff - IMHO, none of us is going to be buying that stuff much, if at all, if there is any other choice. And if there isn’t any other choice, well, bugging you won’t make it happen.

Q. What about diesel?

A. Diesel is the same as regular gas. You get 50 gallons per person at the 90% cut.

Q. What about airline travel?

A. Air travel is about the same emissions as driving the same distance, and is counted accordingly.

Q. Why haven’t you advocated a vegan/vegetarian diet?

A. Well, if you look at the food parameters, you’ll find that effectively, we are requiring most people to eat much, much less meat than the average American. But we also think that the differences between industrially produced and local, sustainable animal products are huge, and it is important to recognize those differences. And some regions have more land suited to animal production than to tillage. We strongly encourage everyone to reduce their meat consumption, certainly to drop their consumption of industrially raised meat to 0 immediately, but it is up to each individual, within the parameters of the program, whether they eat animal products or not.

Q. This all seems very hard and overwhelming - what do I do?

A. Talk to us. We’re all in the same boat, and all a little overwhelmed. We’ll figure it out.

Q. What if I fail?

A. If you fail, you’ll have still cut your emissions by a great deal, and the places you don’t succeed will indicate places where larger systems support are most needed. You’ll still be able to stand up in front of the world and point out what you did do. And…what if you don’t fail ;-)?