The going green debate

I watched a news clip on CBC last evening, in which a person concerned about the environment talked about the steps that he was taking to reduce his impact on the environment. The focus talked about the initiatives that individuals could take in their homes and their daily lives to help Canada meet its Kyoto targets.
His big energy saving was using his bike in Toronto year round replacing his car. I suppose in Toronto that the bike solution may work. I don’t suspect that in our district the bike solution would work for half the year.
The clip showed the green house gas reductions of 40 people using public transportation over their own vehicles. That too creates many savings.
When the Tories announced their Green House Gas targets last week, I found myself skeptical. Would we really be willing to change our way of life. I have changed many of my incandescent light bulbs to the more efficient fluorescent bulbs. Personally, I am still not convinced that the fluorescent bulbs have the same lumens of light. And they don’t seem to generate the same warm yellow light. I can grudgingly comply.
Am I ready to walk more? Or travel less? Or downsize the size of my house now that my children have grown and left? Would I change my heat from gas to electricity to cut down on my carbon emissions. I don’t see myself doing any one of those items.
I like other Canadians will probably look to someone else to solve the green house gas problem in Canada. Who can I go after?
Recently, several articles have appeared in papers across the world suggesting that single persons living alone are creating huge unnoticed climate problems. A study coming from Holland looked at the cost of running households. Every week, we visit our local grocery store and stock up on a variety of products to maintain our home and health, toilet paper, soap, dish detergent, and more. We pick up our meat items, and produce.
Depending on the size of our household, one bag of fruit might contain five apples for a single person while the same bag might contain 15 for a family. And the packaging for a pound of burger is not that much less than for three pounds. The single person household often uses as much packaging as a family of four.
And once into the home, a single person household will use almost the same amount of energy for lighting, heat as a multi person household.
A report published out of England in the journal “Environment, Development and Sustainability” by Dr. Jo Williams examined the habits of various age groups and discovered single men in the ages of 25-44 are the biggest consumers of energy, and household goods. The study found that they consumer 38% more products, 42% more packaging, 55% more electricity and 61% more gas per person than an individual in a household of four.
Single men take the hit again especially if they are living alone. Their diet appears poorer relying on fast food and take out which consumes more in packaging.
Single men seem to use more energy whether it is operating the washing machine, the dryer, the toaster, the television, the stereo, taking a shower or the vehicles they drive.
Who else are targets for blame?
–Jim Cumming,
Publisher