[Greenbuilding] ENERGY STAR Clothes Dryers Program Launch

[Reuben Deumling]

On Fri, Jul 27, 2012 at 5:00 PM, Paul Eldridge <
paul.eldridge at ns.sympatico.ca> wrote:

> It would seem to earn one's green credentials you have to forego tumble
> drying and toss away your iron.  [...]  What else?  My electric kettle?


Paul,

you tell me. If fossil fuels are on their way out, and yet the overwhelming
majority of electrons generated in this country are generated by burning
this very problematic substance, and the only other well-capitalized
approach to drying clothes in a clothes dryer is to burn natural gas
directly in them, how exactly do you propose to hold onto this entitlement?
or any other, really?

Given looming constraints on our use of fossil fuels for they myriad
purposes we've devised to apply them, burn them, use them up, how is it
that your/our convenience trumps these larger issues? Or did I
misunderstand you?

You've explained here that you buy lots of renewable electrons, even more
than you yourself use, but as Corwyn pointed out here not so long ago,
we're not really there yet as a society--where we have enough extra
renewable electrons to just live like we've grown accustomed, but with a
slightly different contract with the electric company.

I struggle with this too. In our case it is (primarily) water heating and
cooking that use natural gas, and which I'd like to figure out how to
accomplish without fossil fuels or grid electricity. Wood + solar makes a
lot of sense, but figuring out the details of those systems and
implementing them in a 660 square foot house with a spouse who's only
medium interested is, well, a challenge. But that doesn't for a moment
suggest to me that these aren't challenges we're all going to have to face.

On Sat, Jul 28, 2012 at 6:42 AM, Sacie Lambertson <
sacie.lambertson at gmail.com> wrote:

I am curious though about the damnation of ice making.  I can't imagine
> getting through this summer without those fridge-made cubes.
>
> We each have our foibles.  Sacie
>

My problem is that I can't hang my food or water on a line or a rack year
round and expect to have meals and showers as a result. As Sacie said, we
all have our foibles. For some it may be ice cubes, for others the clothes
dryer, or cooking. You can dismiss the whole enterprise as being about
'green credentials,' but that doesn't, I think, really capture the severity
of our predicament, or the earnestness with which thousands, tens
(hundreds?) of thousands of people are trying to figure out how to move
beyond fossil fuels, extricate themselves from the death grip of
convenience.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/90PercentReduction
http://www.transitionnetwork.org/
http://www.transitionus.org/
http://www.transitionguelph.org/
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