Welcome!
Welcome to the CEC Blog!
This blog is set up to share the latest information about Cope Environmental Center in Centerville, Indiana and any cutting edge new ideas, technologies or happenings in the world of sustainability and environmental stewardship in Wayne County, Indiana, and the world.
Please post comments here to help educate people on how to take the next step towards sustainability. This is for those of you who have bought your CFls, take your own bags to the store, hypermile or own a hybrid, buy energy efficient appliances, recycle, and are looking to go a step further towards conservation and being a good steward of our resources!
First tip - use cloth napkins on a regular basis and not just for the fancy dinners!
Second tip - eliminate plastics #3, 6 and 7 from your life! read more at http://www.coopamerica.org/pubs/realmoney/articles/plastics.cfm
I look forward to hearing from all of you!
Stephanie
Chuck Warner said,
June 4, 2008 @ 7:38 pm
Hi:
I don’t often write to blogs but I thought I would contribute to one that was dear to my heart. I have property near the CEC and grew up with Jim and Helen as my neighbors. I also had Helen as my high school biology teacher. I have always tried to pay attention to my impact on nature and the environment. I currently live, most days, in Troy Ohio and ride my bike to work on days when the weather is good. I do this for 3 reasons. First it’s good exercise and jump starts my day. Second it saved me about $100 in gas last year. And third by riding my bike instead of driving my car I didn’t put about 650 pounds of CO2 into the atmosphere. That’s right just my simple 4 miles one way and back saved all those emissions and health and wealth as a bonus.
I don’t think most people realize how much carbon dioxide the average car or truck puts into the atmosphere. I only biked 500 miles last year but it still reduced my impact by over 1/4 of a ton. There are a bunch of different calculations that tell you how much your car actually puts out but the national average is around 1.3 pounds per mile. If you drive a gas guzzler (10 MPG) you put out 2.5 pounds per mile. So just by getting a more efficient car you can make a huge impact.
Now there are different opinions on whether our escalating CO2 emissions are really contributing to the downfall of the earth’s environment through global warming. After all volcanoes and undersea fissures put a lot more into the atmosphere than all our cars. But consider the fact that nature has been able to compensate for all that for millions of years without much problem. Only recently has one animal (humans) been playing unfair with the environment. No other animal puts out that much CO2. No other animal cuts down millions of acres of trees. No other animal dumps poisons in their own drinking water. To me it is the combination of all the selfish things we do to the environment, not just one, that makes us irresponsible.
Some things are beyond our control, like volcanoes or fires started by lightning. Some of the things we can control as the most intelligent life forms on this planet are: How we choose to get around (big car or little car), how many miles we drive per year, how many trees we plant, how many trees we cut down (or allow to be cut down) in the name of progress. You get the picture, and you can be sure that I will be doing my part. Can you say the same?
Chuck Warner
Chuck Warner said,
July 2, 2008 @ 9:40 am
If you’re reading this then consider it a challenge to post something yourself to this blog. If you have any thoughts about any environmental issues post them here. I know the more people that post the more readers there will be.
Well my latest rambling relates to recycling. Recycling is great and it gives you a warm fuzzy feeling but there is something even better. Better than recycling…how can that be? Well, I am here to tell you that the ultimate form of recycling is REUSE. Yep, Americans used to do it all the time. They used to just wash pop and milk bottles instead of grind them up and make new ones. This is just one example how things change over time. Now your going to think I’m crazy but I reuse some things that might be a little bit strange. Oh I bet some of you could top these but here are some of my favorites. I rarely buy plastic garbage bags…I use the ones they give you in stores to bring home the stuff you buy. I run plastic spoons forks and knives through my dishwasher and reuse them over and over again. Some of you might be wondering why I use plastic silverware. Well, you get them in box lunches at work, at fast food resturants, picnics, etc. They wash up just as good as silverware and then I put them in my packed lunch for work. I also refill bottled water containers (once) before I recycle them. The reason I only refill them once is because they are so thin that they won’t take that many uses. Also germs build up on the rim and could give you a cold. So why don’t I wash them out and reuse them more then twice. Think about it. If your going to waste water washing them out you should use a reusable cup. Then you can use it several times and put it in the dishwasher along with your plastic spoons. Some folks today why not just drink tap water? Even if most bottled water comes from municipal or ground water sources it still gets filtered as it’s but into the bottle. Tap water on the other hand usually does not. Ask any plumber what kind of things live inside of pipes especially those in older buildings and you can’t feel good about drinking tap water. Convinience is the main reason people carry little bottles of overpriced water everywhere they go nowdays. If every tap was required to have a carbon filter right at the point of use and everyone carried a canteen over their sholder then problem solved.
I could go on but I think you get my point. There are millions of ways to reuse the things that most people just assume are disposable. You don’t need to become a “Fred Sanford” just think about how you can give everything a second or third life. Every time you reuse something you get double recycling points and that makes for a really fuzzy feeling inside, and for a better earth.
P.S…If you don’t know what a “Fred Sanford” is then you either have never watched TV, which is a good thing, or you are much younger than me, which is also a good thing. (:>
Chuck
Chuck Warner said,
August 6, 2008 @ 9:15 am
Well, here we are in August, the time when most people take summer vacations. Some drive for thousands of miles just to see one of the world’s natural wonders. With gas prices so high most people are reducing the distance of their travels this year but the roads are still full of cars and trucks. I have studied many alternative forms of transportation over the years. The ultimate freedom is having your own car in your own garage and just going anywhere any time you want to go. Recently I have read about some different concepts in personal transportation and wanted to pass the info on to CEC blog readers.
First, there is a multitude of activity centered around EV or electric vehicles. Hybrids still use gasoline but not as much of it. Electric vehicles need to be charged and this for the most part is done with electricity produced from coal. It is hard to find many pure electric cars in the US so most people that want one are converting it from gas to electric on their own. Here are a couple of web sites that tell everything you might want to know about electric vehicles: http://www.evconvert.com and http://www.evworld.com
Another alternate fuel that is starting to get some attention is CNG or compressed natural gas. Basically, you take the same clean burning natural gas that many people heat their home and cook with, compress it into a storage tank in your car and scoot on down the road. This is the cleanest burning fuel we have and almost all of it we use comes from wells in the US and Canada. So why is there only one mass producer of cars that sells a production natural gas vehicle? Yes, the Honda Civic GX: http://automobiles.honda.com/civic-gx/ is the only one I found. Here is a web site promotes the use of natural gas in vehicles: http://www.ngvamerica.org/.
And now for a radical departure from the American dream of 2+ cars in every garage. The concept is called “car sharing”: http://www.carsharing.net/ and it is already available in some US cities. Honda also is promoting it in their “ICVS” program (intelligent community vehicle system): http://world.honda.com/ICVS/ . It’s really not a new concept. Golf courses have been using it for years. Check it out and let me know what you think. Just to see if anyone other than Stephanie reads my blogs I am offering a special promotion. Be the first person to add to the blog and I will donate $100 to the CEC in your name. CEC employees are disqualified but everyone else is welcome to write a post or comment on one of mine. Of course it would be nice to see a posting by a CEC employee also.
Good Luck!!
Chuck Warner
admin said,
August 6, 2008 @ 12:53 pm
Great challenge - Thank you Chuck! We are workign to build awareness about our blog and hope otehrs will spread the knowelge.
Thank you!