Frugally Green » Doing the Right Thing

In Defense of Air Travel

Tyler — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 02:14:52 +0000

I don’t do a lot of traveling.

In fact, looking back on 2009, I only made it out of Oregon a few times to nearby Washington.

I’m not well traveled. I’ve been to Europe for a couple months, Canada a few times, and I’ve spent exactly 6 hours in Mexico.

Airlines are one of the most popular punching bags of the green movement and not without reason. Flying is expensive, it pollutes like crazy and, for the vast majority of people, it’s used as nothing but transportation to a vacation destination where tourism is slowly degrading what was once a beautiful and natural habitat.

Yet, I harbor no ill-will for the airline industry.

Call me crazy, but I just see too much potential in the benefits of world travel to campaign against it.

Despite its drawbacks, there are two enormous benefits to world travel that I just don’t think should be ignored.

The Human Connection

Never before in history has an average Joe like you or me had such ready access to, quite literally, the entire world.

From Germany to Fiji, from Bolivia to Mongolia, in many cases we can put ourselves directly in the middle of a brand new culture in less than a day for less than $1000.

Throughout time, imperialistic and isolationist governments alike have used our lack of knowledge about different cultures as a rallying point to commit some of the most heinous crimes imaginable.

With one fell swoop, the commercial airliner has allowed us to evaluate the claims of our governments for ourselves.

The more we travel, the more we connect with new places, cultures, and people. The more we connect, the more we realize that we’re really all the same.

Even though we look, speak, and act differently, we all share a common goal for a peaceful and prosperous world. We’re many strands of one people. And that gives us power that we’ve never had before.

Try as they might, governments and regimes can no longer pit nation against nation simply by spreading misinformation. Not without a fight.

This is invaluable.

The Spread of Influence

The second major benefit of affordable airline travel is its ability to give voice to the everyday man/woman that wants to make a difference.

Of course, this is becoming more and more viable across the internet (Frugally Green has been read in over 103 countries), but face to face communication is still king. This is proven by the fact that many prominent bloggers write for free, yet earn thousands of dollars to speak face to face with an audience.

Many environmentalists and world changers alike are now able to spread their word around the entire world for a mere fraction of the price that they’d have paid only 50 years ago and in a fraction of the time as well.

Even a well intentioned tourist, perhaps even yourself, can now make a difference in the world with an ease never before afforded to you.

While the polluting effects of a transcontinental jet are something to be measured and weighed carefully in any travel scenario, I do not support the wholesale condemnation of them as a blight on the environment or a telling sign of civilization’s downfall.

To the same effect, I do not think for even a second that they are our savior and path to an enlightened and peaceful existence.

These are false dichotomies created by fundamentalists that attempt to portray only their version of the truth, much like a pharmaceutical commercial that promises to remedy your every last ailment followed by a list of 20 serious side effects spoken at 100 miles a second.

An airplane is a tool used to move people from one place to another. Ultimately, it is your and my responsibility alike to ensure that we’re using them to change the world for the better.

What do you think? Are airplanes useful tools for connecting people and ideas that can change the world? Why or why not?

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If You Never Quit, You Can Never Fail

Tyler — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 13:40:56 +0000

What does it take to succeed?

Many argue that it takes a sharp mind, a strong work ethic and the right opportunities.

These are just a few of the aspects commonly quoted as the fundamental ingredients of success.

To an extent, they’re all right. When you look back on the life of someone who’s demonstrated success over and over again, these are the things you see.

What often gets overlooked, though, are the many missteps that invariably occur on any path to greatness. These missteps are what most of us regular folks know as failures.

Every time I set a new goal for myself, every time I take on a new environmental challenge, I encounter numerous failures.

What kind of road blocks have you encountered when you’re trying to change something about yourself?

Failure, you see, is a funny thing because there are two ways to interpret it, and which way you choose will completely determine your future success.

Failure as an end

For many, as soon as something doesn’t go according to plan, it’s a clear sign that the plan won’t work and they ought to just give up.

Let’s say you decided that you wanted to use less water. To make a go of it, you’re going to take shorter showers, turn off the water when you’re brushing your teeth, and only run the dishwasher when it’s full.

After a couple weeks, you notice that you just can’t drag yourself out of the shower, you still always forget to turn off the water when you’re brushing your teeth, and you need to run the dishwasher half full because there’s a dirty cheese grater you need for dinner.

There must have been a fatal flaw in the plan that couldn’t be fixed. May as well give up and look for something else to do.

Sometimes that’s true, but most of the time, it isn’t. With this type of mindset, it’s virtually impossible to achieve anything even remotely difficult.

When you’re trying to do something new, you’re constantly fighting your mind to just do it the same old way. It’s an internal struggle that can be very difficult to win.

Failure as a means to an end

When you change how you look at failure and redefine it as a setback and opportunity for learning instead of an insurmountable roadblock, so much more becomes achievable.

You’re making a difficult change. You don’t have to beat your mind the first time and you don’t have to beat it every time afterword. You just have to beat it once, and then beat it again. And then keep beating it little by little until you’re winning most of the time.

There is no such thing as perfection.

There is no such thing as smooth ride.

There is no free lunch.

Each time you feel like you’ve failed, you get a very unique opportunity to figure out why you failed and adjust accordingly.

As Seth Godin says, fail and fail fast.

Every major change is the result of many tiny failures. If you do it right, each is unique, but they all serve the same purpose – to teach you how to not screw up again.

This means dreaming from a bird’s eye view: “I am going to use 50% less water than I do now by this time next year.”

It means planning at ground level: “I’m going to take shorter showers, turn off the faucet every chance I get, only run the dishwasher when it’s full, start collecting rain water, etc.”

And most importantly, it means analyzing through a microscope: “Why was my shower so long and how can I make it shorter next time? Why did I forget to turn off the faucet and what’s a new trick I can use to remember?”

You rally yourself around a big goal, but you fight in the trenches. You keep figuring out what doesn’t work until you figure out what does.

Final Thoughts

A war is won by failing to win 49% of its battles. An entrepreneur gets rich by failing 99% of her business deals before finding one that sticks.

If you want to change your habits, you have to be willing to fail over, and over, and over again. And then you have to be willing to fly to the moon when you find your one success.

I wrote this post three times before I got it “right.”

Never quit.

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I Am Responsible for the Corporate World’s Waste, or A Lesson in Micro Economics

Tyler — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 12:00:19 +0000

On Thursday, bloggers around the world united to write about one single topic: climate change. It was an act of solidarity organized by the folks at blogactionday.org.

Every year, a major social topic is selected and willing participants around the world discuss the issue on their blogs on the same day in an attempt to raise widespread awareness.

Unfortunately, little old me didn’t know such a day existed until it was too late. Even though I write about this, one way or another, every day, lets consider this my belated contribution.

I learned about this year’s blog action day from Chris Guillebeau while perusing my new favorite site, The Art of Nonconformity. There’s always some great discussion over there and one comment in particular caught my attention:

Yet again the focus is on the little guy. Does the little led on my TV really matter when cities the world over are full of high rise offices that leave their lights on 24/7? Manufacturing and business produce the most harmful emissions and yet the emphasis is on the little home dweller?

This really got me thinking. Was he right? Are we picking on the little guys when the the big boys are the ones causing all the problems?

What difference does it make that I turn off all of my lights when the office buildings down the street leave theirs on all night doing 10,000 times more damage than I ever could? Who cares if we buy an electric car when all the electricity it produces comes from a wildly smoking coal plant hundreds of miles away?

Why should I bother?

Here’s why: because you and I are the most powerful change agents that exist on this planet.

You may think that you can’t make a difference and that some guy in a suit sitting in an ivory tower that doesn’t care about you is calling all the shots, but it’s not true.

We own that suit. We own that ivory tower. When we say jump, that guy listens. The only reason he isn’t jumping yet is because we haven’t told him to. Maybe we’ve started, but we haven’t raised our voice yet. You and I hold all of the power. Let’s wield it.

How corporations work

The #1 responsibility of every corporation that exists is to make money for its shareholders.

Sure, they all have noble secondary goals that tout their value to society, but the one, big, underlying goal that every single one of them is a slave to is to make lots of money for the people that invest in them. The beauty in this is that, usually, the very noble secondary goals must be met in order to generate that profit.

They have to provide us with something that we find valuable enough to trade our hard earned money for.

You see, you and I don’t really care about shareholders and all those shinanigans. How much money they make doesn’t bother us so long as we think we’re getting a good deal for something useful. In fact, if we decided to pay attention to all that, we might even be happy that these businesses that are making our lives so much better are making tons of money.

This is where we get to step in and call the shots.

Why you and I are responsible

Like I mentioned above, if a business must attract tons of our money to return great amounts of it to shareholders, it has to impress the heck out of us. To impress the heck out of us, what it offers must deeply connect with what we value the most.

Whatever it is that you and I find the most important in life, a company must provide to us in order to rise to the top.

So the buck stops at you. It stops at me. What do we really care about?

Do we care that Corporation A runs a sweat shop filled with incandescent lights that stay on all day and night? Does it matter to you that Corporation B swallows up tons of resources and spews out waste at an alarming rate? What about Corporation C that produces its own energy with wind and solar power and recycles all its waste back into its production stream? Does any of that actually matter?

What I believe the commenter on Chris’ post points out, inadvertently, is that it does not. We all say we care about and want the best for our environment, but is that really true? Every marketer out there that’s worth his weight in salt knows that what we consumers say we want and what we actually want are oftentimes very contradictory.

McDonalds knows this better than any business out there and they openly admit it. Their customers say they want salads, so McDonalds offers just enough varieties of them to get you to come in and buy a cheeseburger.

If we really, truly, in our heart of hearts, valued Corporation C above, that business model would be the industry norm. But we don’t and it isn’t. What we really care about is money and giving up just enough of it to get something just barely acceptable in return.

We care about this because it strengthens our ability to do it again and again. We’re consumers. Now, don’t get offended. I’m guilty as sin. Luckily, there’s something we can do.

The power we wield

What we seem to fail to realize seemingly over and over again is that the cheapest things in our lives are the ones we buy the most often.

Even though they’re made from recycled materials, sourced from renewable resources, and manufactured with renewable energy, the most sustainable products and businesses out there are still more expensive than their opposing counterparts.

If you and I decide, together, that a shoe made from recycled car tires by union employees is what we really value, then it won’t take that long for such a product to become less expensive than a plastic one made in a sweatshop by 8-year-olds as the economies of scale push the cost of such a product lower as we buy more of it and less of the other.

And that’s just the thing. We have to actually buy these products - not just say we will. Actions speak much louder than words and this all ties back to the concept that spending more upfront can often save us bundles down the road.

Nope, the little things don’t matter

“But I’m just one person. What difference can I make?”

Well, I suppose that depends on how you interpret the question. The little steps you take to improve your awareness and value for the environment will never add up to much. All by yourself you will never make a difference, and that’s OK.

Big changes are bigger than you and me. What you do doesn’t really matter. Who you influence does.

If only one person reads this post (I’m secretly holding out for more than that) and decides its worth their effort to try something new, then I have doubled the effectiveness of my minuscule efforts.

If that person influences someone else they know to change as well, I’m three times as effective. By acting on my values with sincerity, however little they’ll accomplish on their own, I have the opportunity to attract many others that are predisposed to my message. There’s little else I have to do as others will take over the cause for me.

If you do this right, you can be the head of your own multi-level marketing scheme, tell all the CEOs of the world how you want your fair-trade coffee served, and finally buy an organic cotton T-shirt for a reasonable price. And while you’re at it, you can let them know they need to turn off their lights when they go home.

Can ya dig?

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I’ve had some great responses to the survey I posted on Tuesday. Thank you so much to those of you that have participated. If you haven’t yet taken it and would like to, please do so now. I will be closing down responses on Wednesday.

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10 More Green Changes in Less than 10 Minutes for Less than $10

Tyler — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 12:00:13 +0000

I just can’t stop. I tried, but I can’t. On Wednesday, a reader pointed out that I had missed a few big ticket items in the original post. He was right. I left out some seriously good tips that you should know about. So, assuming that you’re happy to have another list of tactics in your arsenal to improve your eco-footprint, here’s a list of 10 more green changes you can make in less than 10 minutes for less than $10:

Start a compost pile: But for the love of god, read this post first. If you want something fancy, it’s going to cost you more than $10; I sure found out the hard way. But you don’t need something fancy. You just need something that works. A pile works.

Stop using paper towels: Nope, not hard. Nope, not expensive. A giant pile perfectly acceptable washcloth sized towels is pretty darn inexpensive at your local outlet grocery or restaurant supply store. Fill a drawer with them and toss ‘em in the wash with the rest of your laundry. It’s really no big deal.

Plug your electronics into a power strip: If your living room is filled full of electronic do-dads and thing-a-ma-jigs, it’s likely you’ve already bought a power strip to plug them all into. If you haven’t, go get one dang it! Then, make a little note somewhere to remind yourself to switch it off every morning before you leave for work and at night before you go to bed. All those gadgets (TVs especially) are sucking what’s known as a “phantom load” even while they’re turned off.

Use your oven like a furnace: Our house is down right cold in the winter. Give your furnace a rest for a bit and leave the oven door open after you’re done cooking. The heat won’t make it that far, and it’s not going to keep you warm all night, but I swear it feels great while it lasts! And what else were you going to do with it?

Take a reusable bag to the grocery store: San Francisco banned plastic bags not too long ago. When I was in Europe last summer, if you didn’t have your own bag, you had to pay extra to get one from the supermarket. I walk to my grocery store, so I keep a couple bags by the door. If you’re not that close and prefer to drive, just leave a few in your trunk. You’ll always have them when you need them.

Donate to your favorite charity: Honestly, I’m more of a fan of volunteering time, but that usually takes more than 20 minutes, and let’s face it, they need money to keep going, too. No matter how broke you feel, I bet you can find $20 once in awhile to help out a cause bigger than yourself. If you really can’t find $20 to give away all at once, I bet you can find $5 four times over the course of a few weeks or months. Think about it the next time you’re buying a latte or super big gulp.

Don’t wash clean clothes: I’ve read that the average person does 4 loads of laundry a week. What!?! I only do one and seem to get by just fine. If I had more clothes, I could probably manage 1 load every other week. I think most people just have a habit of tossing a piece of clothing in the laundry after the first time they wear it. If you think about it, that’s really unnecessary. I never wear socks or underwear more than once without a wash, but shirts and pants? I have an office job; I don’t exactly perspire much. At the end of the day, my clothes are almost always still clean. My pants get washed about once every two weeks and my shirts about once a week. You can do this. I know you can.

Don’t run an empty dishwasher: Yeah, I’ve done it. There were 5 things in there and I needed 1 of them. Come on, what did you want me to do? Pull it out and quickly hand wash it? You’ve got to be kidding. You really do want me to do that? Seriously? Ok, I guess I’ll think about it next time.

Turn down your thermostat: If you can find a good sweater for less than $20 then you’re all set. I recommend Goodwill. Go in July if you want the best deal. This also happens to be the best time of year to find a selection of cheesy Christmas sweaters, and that’s going to pay off big time at your next cheesy Christmas sweater party.

Unplug your dryer: I wrote a whole little ditty on this not that long ago. I actually save time doing this by not having to wait around for the dryer to stop. What you’ll need: 2 vertical things, 1 horizontal thing, and wet clothes. I’m sure you can figure out the rest!

I should mention, as a reader did on Wednesday, that this list is not comprehensive. I simply have a Tpenchant for round numbers. When you get creative, there is a limitless number of things you can do that fit into this category. The only thing stopping you is your own imagination.

So, please don’t be shy. I know you guys have all kinds of suggestions that could be added to this list and the comments section is, undoubtedly, a fantastic place to compile them.

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10 Green Changes in Less than 10 Minutes for Less than $10

Tyler — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 12:00:12 +0000

That’s right! The trifecta. Frugally Green is here to bring you squarely into 3-dimensional sustainability. Seriously, when was the last time you read a blog post that spoke directly to 3 different facets of your life? You can actually answer that question if you want; I’m looking for some new, amazing material to read after doing some thorough scrubbing of my RSS reader. It’s looking a little sparse.

Anyway, it’s been a little while since I wrote a real, down and dirty, dollars and cents post. It seems like you guys have enjoyed the personal development articles I’ve been writing lately (I’ll be conducting a survey soon to actually confirm that), but I know you secretly yearn for more ways to green it up for less, so I shan’t withhold that from you any longer.

One of the first things I learned while studying construction management in college was how to draw a triangle. Then I was taught how to write ‘time,’ ‘cost,’ and ‘quality’ at each point and told how to interpret this funny diagram. You see, the theory was that, when you’re putting a building together, you must always sacrifice one of these aspects in order to maximize the other two. In other words, you can build quickly and cheaply, but you’ll end up with an inferior product. You can build cheaply and maximize quality, but it’s going to take a long time. Or, if you wish, you may assemble an amazing building rather quickly, but you better believe it’s going to cost a hell of a lot of money.

I stared at this diagram for a few minutes, tilted my head sideways, squinted a little, and then quickly decided that it was complete garbage and quit listening. This model functions quite beautifully, you know, if you’re trying to describe how the vast majority of companies or people work. You can profile the average company or project quite accurately. This is also where the model becomes completely useless because, well, who cares about being average? The best and most innovative builders out there are constantly finding new ways to do what they do better, faster, and cheaper.

Anyway, before I head too far down that road again with my hippie-psycho-babble, let’s get to:

The part you actually care about

All you skimmers (I know you’re there!) will love this part. Here’s a list of 10 things you can do to kick ass at all 3 corners of the triangle and prove my old professor wrong. Maybe she’ll even see this post some day and offer me my tuition back. A guy can dream can’t he?

Don’t flush your toilet: At least not until you start to wonder what might be living in there. I grant you permission to flush every time you poo, but just know that if you choose not to, you are a remarkable person. And I never want to meet you.

Turn off your lights: How many rooms have you ever been able to occupy at the same time? I’ve maxed out at 1. I’d like to know any tricks you have for increasing this number (and no, having an open kitchen/dining area does not count as 2 rooms!). If you’re like me and lacking superhuman powers, you don’t need light in a room you’re not in, so take a second to flip the switch when you exit.

Play a board game instead of a video game: After about 6th grade I was unable to find any interest in video games. Really, what could possibly come next once you’ve beat Super Mario World? But, you know what? I still love Scrabble and Risk like nobody’s business. And I don’t need a TV, a console, or face full of pimples to play scrabble. All I need is a friend. If you know where I could find one of these, I’d appreciate an email.

Turn off your computer: If you leave it on all night or while you’re gone to work, it gets really lonely. When a computer gets lonely, it acts out just like your puppy that ate your couch when you left it alone for an hour to go shopping. Also, I am a total hypocrite. I’m writing this post from my new laptop while my old desktop is buzzing idly across the room. I am ashamed. I will now turn it off and go sit in the corner.

Hypermile: Read this post and start doing it. It’s awesome, it’s addicting, and it’s a fantastic conversation starter as your friends will undoubtedly ask you why you’re driving 45 mph on the freeway. Don’t be ashamed to tell them.

Kill the sink while brushing your teeth: Yeah I know, you’re mom already told you this one. Where do you think I got it? Anyway, if your mom already schooled you on this, why are you still doing it? I know, I know, it’s habit. If you can force yourself to do it 20 times though, you’ll never have to think about it again.

Take shorter showers: How much time do you really need in there? I’ve developed ninja-like quickness in the shower and still lead a perfectly enjoyable life. I understand those early mornings, though. If my body begs me for a few more seconds under the hot water, I oblige, but I don’t need that every day. Life’s too short to dilly dally!

Buy some green investments: Ok, ok. If you really do your research on this, it might take you a bit longer than 20 minutes, but you’ll sure save yourself a lot of time in the long run. If you’re not sure where to start, just start at the beginning. I wrote a little series a while back about what I did when I bought my first green investment. Hopefully it’s of value to you if you’re interested in investing. I trade on Tradeking, which charges $4.95 per trade and account set up only takes a few minutes. I’ve had a good experience so far so I am happy to recommend them to you at no benefit to me.

Buy some white vinegar: And clean your whole damn house with it! Seriously, this stuff is amazing. White distilled vinegar is what you want. I use it to mop floors, clean countertops, bathtubs, sinks, and toilets. I’ve also been told that it works great as a fabric softener. Once I run out, I’ll be giving that a whirl too. Oh yeah, this stuff is crazy cheap, also.

Tell someone about Frugally Green: What kind of post would this be if I didn’t do some shameless self promotion? Honestly though, the reason I write this blog is to help people out. I sure get a lot out of it, too, but I like it more when you get something out of it. The more people that read Frugally Green and get something worthwhile out of it, the better I feel about myself. You wan’t me to feel good about myself, don’t you? Don’t you!?!

Well, looking back, perhaps a more appropriate title for this post would have been 1o Green Changes in Less than 5 Minutes that Will Save or Make You Tons of Money, but I think we all know that’s too long and, really, there’s something to be said for consistency.

Are you doing any of this? What else do you have going on?

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