Year Two
1. Continue whatever is left from the year one agenda. Keep tracking your progress indicators; they should be on a steady downward trend. Tell your friends and family not to bring any plastic or paper trash into your house. If they bring something in, they have to take it with them when they go.
2. Housing: Continue to insulate, weatherize, and cultivate protective windbreak vegetation. Install a solar hot water system.
3. Transportation: Carpool or take public transit to work 3 days a week. Buy a bicycle and start to use it.
4. Electricity: Get rid of electrical gadgets such as kitchen stoves, blankets, can openers. Don't use a microwave to defrost foods, and if you buy a microwave, don't buy a new one. Get a smaller TV (preferably black and white), keep it turned off completely for two days each week, and recycle, sell, or give away any extra TVs you have. If you have a water bed, drain it and replace with another type of bed. Replace your refrigerator/freezer with more efficient model, preferably an ultra low power/highly insulated model. Consider sharing ownership of a full-size freezer with a neighbor.
5. Food: Double the size of your organic garden. Continue learning to eat with the season -- during the winter, use no fresh produce unless it is locally grown. Have three meatless days a week. Start a worm box for a source of high quality fertilizer. Build a wood burning outdoor oven, solar hot plate, and a solar oven. Don't buy any beverages in plastic containers. Start making your own beer, wine, soda pop, herbal teas, whatever your preferred recreational beverages. If you buy imported coffees or teas, purchase them only from "Fair Trade" sources.
6. Heating and air conditioning: In the summer, delay turning on your air conditioning until July 15th. If you are switching to wood, you can scavange wood that would otherwise be wasted, but you must also develop a renewable wood supply. If you have a large lot, learn to continuously harvest fuel wood from a tree ("coppicing") and plant appropriate varieties. If you have a small lot, consider purchasing a small rural woodlot or start a wood cooperative with others who are also heating with wood. Here again, co-housing and cooperative ownership of woodlots is an advantage.
7. Community: Learn to play a non-electrical musical instrument and/or practice your singing. Start an energy saving project with a local organization.
8. Miscellaneous: Go shopping only once every two weeks. Cut back on purchases of "new stuff" -- patronize thrift stores and other parts of the "after market". Stop giving gifts of "new stuff" -- start making your own gifts for others.
About The Author: This document is Share-right (S) 2001 by Robert Waldrop, it may be copied as long as it is distributed free of charge.
Year 3 on Monday.
3 Year Energy Diet - Year Three.
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