But what can I *do*?

[figment]

So I just saw An Inconvenient Truth. I thought the movie was good, albeit depressing; it was a pretty well-constructed documentary and answered questions and raised points pretty clearly. I do urge you to see it if you have any inclination to whatsoever; it's worth the money. Or save it to your Netflix queue if you don't want to see it in a theater.

But more important, for me, is the question that movies like this often leave me with: but what can I do? The movie website has a carbon calculator (there are others out there too) that lets you calculate your environmental impact in some ways. I idly headed over there to fill it out and see how bad the news was for me. One question it asks is: What percentage of your energy is from clean, renewable sources?

I didn't know the answer. I figured that meant it was probably zero. But I decided to check on it and see. And I found out that my power company offers the option to buy alternative energy in increments of 10%, 50%, or 100% of your bill. Switching to 100% green energy increases our bill by about $0.03 per kwh, which will probably add about $18 to our energy bill every month.

That is totally worth it. I didn't know that I even had the option to make that choice, but it was really easy. Why don't you go check? People in Minnesota, Xcel offers a windsource option you can buy at least 400 kwh a month, if you want to.

Comments

[redbird23.livejournal.com]

Ok, I went and looked, and the 55101 zip code for Minnesota is a representative zip code you can use to look at available services in Minnesota. Getting the wind energy option is available in more areas (maybe all of them?) than just that one zip code. You should be able to sign up!