Not quite.
Earlier this year, we were thinking about possible vacation destinations, and cruising down the Mediterranean sounded like a cool idea. One of my coworkers raved about a 3 week cruise she took to Israel, Egypt, Turkey, Greece, which compelled me to investigate further.
Just as I was starting to get excited about the prospect of taking a cruise, I came across this article in the NY Times. Basically, cruise lines are not well policed when it comes to compliance with environmental policies. For example, did you know:
- Most ships run on bunker fuel, which is the dirtiest and cheapest fuel oil
- A one-week voyage on a large ship is estimated to produce 210,000 gallons of sewage, a million gallons of gray water (runoff from sinks, baths, showers, laundry and galleys), 25,000 gallons of oily bilge water, 11,550 gallons of sewage sludge and more than 130 gallons of hazardous wastes
Until the industry changes its ways and makes significant strides in reducing its carbon footprint, I won’t be taking a cruise anytime soon.
Happy Earth Week everyone!
I learned something new in the past couple of weeks. We recently closed on a house (yay!) and one of the first things I mused with our realtor about was, “should we install A/C?” The Bay Area in general has great weather, but the last few summers have had a few days here and there where temperatures were above 90 degrees, making it unbearably hot indoors as well. Today happens to be one of those days - yesterday, temperatures were almost 90 in our apartment, and today, it definitely went past the 90 F mark. It’s hard to resist the temptation to install A/C on days like this.
Anyway, our realtor mentioned installing an attic fan instead. Have you heard of these? During the summer, the temperature in your attic can get well over 100 F. Without an attic fan, heat gets trapped, and it makes your house warmer. An attic fan helps cool down your attic, making your house much cooler. IF you also happen to have A/C running, an attic fan improves efficiency; there’s less work required by your A/C unit to cool down the house. I’ve read that it can save up to 30% on cooling costs, so in the long run, it may be cheaper for you to install one in your own home.
By the way, attic fans are electric or solar. I think they may also come in hybrid versions but I haven’t seen any so far. We’re thinking of installing the solar fan since no energy would be required to run it. Now we just need to figure out where to buy one of these and who can install it. Anyone have any recommendations?
I’m in the process of house hunting, which is a long, tortuous affair. I won’t bore you with the details.
Anyway, our realtors always tell us to look at our potential neighbors and figure out whether they are the Clampetts - will they keep their yards nice and tidy, or will there be junk strewn out day after day, which could erode the value of your home?
The other day, we took a look at a house which had nice curb appeal, but the next door neighbor, while they were far from the Clampetts, had the most derelict looking treehouse in their front yard. It looked like it should be condemned. It definitely looked far from these cool “ecocoons” I’ve seen online. Have you heard of them?
Ecocoons are aesthetically pleasing, eco-friendly treehouses, with features such as dry toilets, rain water harvesting showers, bio mass heating and photo voltaic panels.
It seems like a concept at this point but if our neighbor had one of these in their yard, I don’t think they would be categorized as a Clampett. 
Personally, I hate birds. Maybe it’s some weird fear that was developed when my 6th grade math teacher made us watch Hitchcock’s “The Birds”, which kind of freaked me out at the time. (Yes, I went to a public school!) Or maybe it’s the fact that birds always seem to practice target shooting on my head… whatever it is, I’ve never developed a particular affinity to these winged creatures.
Be that as it may, I read an article recently that talked about how birds may not be able to keep up with climate change, which is very disconcerting to me. Can you imagine not ever seeing another bird again? I know, I know, it’s extreme and I’m over-exaggerating, but really, how much further are we going to let this environmental crisis go? Are we going to let more plants & animals go extinct before we enact greater change?
