Sometimes I believe all the lies so I can do the things I should despise

The other day I was waiting for my friend, Elise, to meet me at the coffee shop that is located between our far flung houses. She was pretty late so I buried my nose in a magazine called In Good Tilth, a sustainability publication. Matt has been learning so much in his Energy Management program that contradicts what we thought we were doing to be good stewards of the earth. We've been making small changes and a few large ones(living in a trailer) to be more responsible, but sometimes things hit me like a brick wall. So back to the magazine. Inside the front cover was a picture of a big freight ship coming into a west coast harbor. The caption said
"A ship entering the Pacific Northwest via the Columbia River. Long distance shipping and transportation is a hallmark of an unsustainable culture."
Whoa, I am very caught up in that culture. I don't think of myself as a vain person, but I take so much pride in owning knick knacks, clothing, food, and furniture from other countries. How did I exactly think that they got here? uh.. teleportation? There are so many stores in Eugene that people frequent to get goods shipped from God knows where. Plus, they consider that "buying local" because they are small shops. Even the food that we eat here travels an average of 2000 miles to get us.

We really need to think about what we are doing even on a small scale. Growing your own food, buying from a local farmer, seamstress, or brewer is HUNDREDS of times more efficient. Reusing something is dozens of times better than recycling, or buying new.

I'm not trying to use scare tactics(matt and i feel like that is on par with fire and brimstone sermons), but here are some things that I have been thinking about/doing that might be interesting to you. Who knows?

-If you are traveling over 1000 miles, fly commercial,( even if you are Nancy Pelosi or Al Gore). It doesn't make sense to take your own vehicle even if it's a little cheaper, that plane will still fly even if you take your own car.
-If every household replaced a lightbulb with a compact fluorescents, the nation would save 5 billion dollars over the life of a lightbulb. (but don't throw away a perfectly good old lightbulb, that would waste embodied energy right there, just wait until it burns out)

I was going to post more but I am feeling guilty for such a rigorous post. We can talk more later.
Thanks for reading.