Hi All, Climate Master John Fischer here with KLCC's Living Less Unsustainably.
I took a three-month series of local Climate Master classes developed by Sarah Maze about 20 years ago. We learned about how to reduce your climate footprint in six different areas: Transportation, Home Energy, Food Consumption, Yard Maintenance, Water Consumption, and Consumption of Goods and Services.
After graduating, Climate Masters would go to area homes and businesses and give people ideas on how to make changes that could reduce their impact on the planet.
I learned a lot about climate impacts that I pass on to you each month.
Some things are obvious - drive less, and you will reduce your impact. Other things surprised me; the energy footprint of water consumption - especially in EWEB's service area where gravity does most of the distribution - is quite small. Conserving water is still a good idea, but more from an ecosystem standpoint than an energy standpoint.
I also learned a lot about people. While going through a home with high heating bills, I asked a homeowner if we could look at the furnace filter. He said it had just been changed, but because they had pets I wanted to see if the filter had gotten clogged again.
After a little hemming and hawing, the homeowner admitted he just meant to change the filters, but did not know where they were located. When we found and exposed the filter, it was so clogged that almost no air was getting through. A new filter made a big difference.
There's nothing wrong with not knowing everything - duh.
But being open to learning, open to new ideas, and open to outside of the box solutions, can be a big part of solving our big climate problem.
On a side note, I have cleanable re-usable furnace filters in my home. A little more expensive up front, but after 25 years in service, they probably have more life left in them than I do.
I'm John still learning Fischer with Living Less Unsustainably.
