Cutting carbon
“THE Oscar win for Al Gore’s documentary An Inconvenient Truth has touched off a minor firestorm over the Green Giant’s own energy usage policies:”
Paul and I consider ourselves Crunchy Conservatives and I thought I would use this post to share some of the lifestyle choices we have made to live more green and teach our children a quieter lifestyle that is more eco-friendly.
1. We have used cloth diapers to one degree or another with all of our babies.
2. I breastfeed my babies for years
3. We have only owned one car at a time during our whole marriage.
4. We frequently ride the bus, walk, or ride bikes to the places we need to go, including shopping for groceries and traveling to church.
5. I cook 80 to 90 % of our food from scratch.
6. We live in a 1500 sq foot home that uses very little energy to keep warm.
7. We buy most of our childrens clothing from thrift stores and garage sales (this has altered somewhat with teenage girls, but we still have quarterly trips to Savers to buy shoes, coats, and jeans). * NOTE: We don’t allow our children to “hang out” at the mall, and continually remind them of the blessings they have as Americans and the responsibility they have to our world community to share and promote freedom and prosperity for all. We have taught them to pay tithing and fast offerings, which are a powerful antidote to the “me first” attitude of their generation.
8. Since we don’t own any land, we have on occasion grown vegetables in our friends gardens and used it for our daily food.
9. We almost never go to the Allopathic doctors for help with illness.
10. We use all environmentally safe home cleaning products for laundry, dishes etc…
As a capitalist, I honestly don’t care how Al Gore lives his life, and I believe each family should decide for themselves how comfortably they want to live in this world. Paul and I have chosen to live very simply with the belief that a stay at home mother is the absolute greatest gift we could give to our babies and the example we wanted to teach our girls and boys so that they will embrace this lifestyle with our grandchildren.
I don’t believe government should be pressuring people to live more green, America is moving in that direction anyway (except for liberals like John Edwards and Al Gore who have excluded themselves from leaving a small footprint on the earth) and I do believe it is wise to give incentives to businesses to conduct their day to day operations more environmentally friendly.
Jenny Hatch