How important is the earth to you? Do you care a little bit? It seems that we start to care more.
One big step that we made is the purchase of an electric bike for my wife. That means she now bikes to work instead of using the car. That is one big step for us. Is this the last step we need to return back to the one car family? I do hope so. Not only for our savings, also for the environment. We already had a few days where the full ATL family biked to school/work/train station. Woot woot…! Many more to come.
Another change we made is that we no longer want to use pesticides around our house to keep the weed under control. Yes, that means more time and effort from our side to remove the weed… I am experimenting a little with an electrical weed burner. I am curious to see how it goes.
And as investors in our garden, I am happy to announce that our forward looking garden dividend looks awesome this year. There will be potatoes and raspberries, lot’s of raspberries.
Note, we do not do this to save money. It is mainly an educational consideration for the kids: they grow the vegetables with us, so they know what effort it takes to buy them in a store or on a local market. And I am a big fan of raspberries… I look forward to my very first raspberry- vanilla ice on the terrace.
The pool – there will be no pool or pond in our garden. Sorry for all those expecting to come over for a refreshing dive. That being said, you are welcome in our new and bigger kids pool. No diving allowed!
The BBQ – This weekend I tested already twice my new coal lightning chimney. And it works great. I can heat the chimney, go inside and prepare the vegetables for about 20 minutes. That is ideal. I am still considering to buy a covered BBQ. The meat is more juicy and fish would be better as well. Maybe for my birthday.
What do you do to keep the planet green?
amber tree leaves 
Haha, posting on the “green” topic is fashionable today. I posted on green investing. I was surprised by the numbers.
I cycle to work as well. And consume as little nonsense as possible. Good for the planet, good for the wallet.
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You started off so well on this post, with cycling, not using pesticides and water preservation. But then you end with a coal BBQ and meat! With one meal you pretty much whipped out all previously created environmental benefits.
If you really want to make a difference, you got to go one step further: http://www.cowspiracy.com/facts/
On the green note, we actually cycled to our family and stayed the night, rather than driving twice up and down. Saved about 170km in the car. We got about 85km of cycling done….fully packed and with kid on the bike.
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I would consider buying a speed pedelec too. It would rather be for comfort instead of the environment and to cash a bicycle remuneration at work. Saving fuel is a benefit for the environment too.
In general I don’t pay that much attention to being ‘green’. However I do try to not throw food away and to buy just enough.
I think the real initiatives should come from companies instead of individuals. One can say he will eat less meat but then the store will just put it in discount which stimulates others to buy it because it’s cheaper. Last week we bought real good steaks for about €13/kg. Who’s gonna say no to that?
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For now:
– We have LEDded almost every light in the house. The ones that are not done yet I can’t buy LEDs for yet.
– I hunted energy wasters with a portable usage meter
– I do not invest in oil/tobacco companies
– I did invest in HASI (the only stock which has gained in value so far in my portfolio lol).
– We use a green garbage container
– We recycle paper
I care about green and hope that my small actions benefit our environment.
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Good points… The LED is a good one. We started to replace regular bulbs with LED bulbs.
And we have no less than 4 types of garbage cans to recycle as much as possible.
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The funny thing is that with my frugal living style I was/am living a lot ‘greener’ than some of my more vocal friends who talked a lot about being green but do air travel 2 a 3 times a year (where my grand total of air travel stands at 4 short trips for my entire life). Being lazy helps in this department too!
But no children, about 32 trees in the orchard (and no pesticides used) and Berkshire Hathaway owns the largest wind farms in the USA. I can ride my Vespa guild free (not that a sloth would ever bother with that kind of morality …).
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travel in general would be my weekspot… Flying is not that good and driving roundtrip to ski… Nr of trees is a nice one to balance. We have a few as well
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I don’t use pesticides either, never used them in my life. We grow some vegetables but this is quite limited, as well as some herbs like rosemary, lemon balm, parsley, and chive. Also lots of berries like strawberries, raspberries, blackberries and gooseberries.
Solar panels for the house are still on my wish list, I’m considering to buy a kit to cover most of our annual electricity consumption.
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Solar is not an option for us dueto the orientation of the roof. Maybe one day a construction in the garden
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I don’t really put a lot of thought in being green, or having a lower carbon footprint. There are some things however that fall into this category: biking to work (both of us), recycle our paper waste, and of course don’t use any pesticides.
My garden is like a big flower bed filled with dandelions. Have bought a weed pointer (onkruidsteker?) a few weeks back in order to get them out by hand, one by one. It’s quite the hard work, but what do you want after neglected the garden for 1 year 😉
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I walk to work, or catch the bus if I want. I also try to eat vegetarian a few times a week, which reduces contribution of greenhouse gas considerably. One of the things European houses are far better equiped for is weather – in Australia insulation is crummy and it’s rare to get double glazed windows (usually, they’re installed to reduce traffic noise. not for temperature considerations). If I ever build a house, I’d like to make it very energy efficient.
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