Green Propositions in California Are Frustrating!

California is great for going green in a lot of ways. Lots of sunshine for those who want solar power. Often good incentives for it too. Curbside recycling in many areas.

Unfortunately, the statewide propositions we have to consider aren’t so great.

I have a love/hate thing for the system of state propositions. On the one hand, it means the votes can decide on things the legislature isn’t going to bother with. There’s a more direct say.

On the other hand, some propositions end up really being on things the legislature should have taken care of, because they require so much research to make an intelligent decision on.

The two big ones are Prop 7 and Prop 10.

It pains me to be against Prop 7. It really does. But I see its goals as unrealistic. I’d love to be able to meet those goals, but generating 20% of the energy created by government owned utilities from renewable sources by 2010 strikes me as highly unrealistic. It’s nearly the end of 2008, after all! Add in that opponents include the Sierra Club, the California Democratic Party and the California Republican Party, as well as many other groups.

But does it ever hurt to oppose it. I love the idea! Especially since the goals keep increasing. But I worry about the potential impact on smaller companies, and how we develop our use of renewable energy sources. This looks too likely to be a solution that will slow progress down, not speed it up.

When my family got together to discuss the propositions, we at first thought Prop 10 sounded good. But my mother works for the state and while she doesn’t deal with the budget in her job (she’s in worker’s comp), she certainly feels the pinch when the state can’t settle on a budget and stops paying for a time. For those of you out of state, that’s happened a lot of years lately. They get the back pay eventually, but it’s a pain.

She always gets mad when they say a bond issue won’t increase taxes. It won’t that year, but how exactly do people expect the bonds to be paid back?

Opponents also say this is mostly to fund natural gas vehicles. Not nearly so much hybrids, electric cars and so forth. These vehicles don’t even necessarily pollute less than regular ones!

As you can imagine, being against these two nominally environmental propositions is really hard for me. It would be so much nicer to have something that could be supported as a step in the right direction, even if it weren’t perfect. These two are so far beyond perfect I can’t support them.

Beyond the Sugar Crazed Rush of Halloween

Goodness, my kids had too much sugar yesterday. Considering that under normal circumstances, if we have candy they get one piece a day, and yesterday we pretty much didn’t worry about consumption…

homemade halloween costumes

Let’s just say kids on a sugar high are pretty interesting.

It’s one of the few days a year that I allow so much freedom with sugar. It’s going to take months to eat everything they picked up trick or treating last night, because the one piece a day rule goes right back into effect.

They got an early start too. We took them to my husband’s parents’ house for a visit, and they took the kids across the street to show off the costumes to a neighbor. Who of course gave them little bags of candy.

When we got back home, so did a neighbor, because she wasn’t going to be home to see them in the evening.

Overall, this makes me really glad I don’t give them access to a lot of candy all year. Not to mention how nice it is that Halloween was on a Friday, so they have two days to wind back down before school is in session again. They need it.

All this makes me really glad that I do so much cooking from scratch. Much easier to avoid HFCS and such in other foods when you do that. Besides, homemade bread is so much better tasting!

I am a believer in moderation, but with things like HFCS moderation is more challenging than many think. I pretty much accept that it’s going to be in most of the candy my kids got for Halloween, as is food coloring.

Cooking with fresh fruits and vegetables, making my own sauces and spice mixes, allowing only 100% fruit juice when they have juice, and so forth, cuts back the potential sources delightfully.

I know some people would soonest avoid it altogether, and either don’t do trick or treating, or take or trade away the candy so obtained, but that’s just not me.

As for winding the kids down, just now they’re painting. I’m encouraging a lot of creative and active play today to work the excitement out of their systems. Seems to be working. They’ve gone from arguing all morning to playing very nicely together this afternoon.

Is a Programmable Thermostat for You?

One of the big tips I often read about for cutting your bills is to install a programmable thermostat in your home. And they can certainly be convenient. But are they for everyone?

I’ve lived with and without one. Many times, they have indeed been a good idea. If your home gets too cold at night, for example, it’s nice to have the house warming up a little before everyone has to get out of bed.

On the other hand, I currently don’t have one and don’t feel the need. I work at home, so I’m here all the time, and I know quite a bit about how much heat I tend to use in winter, and how much air conditioning I use in the summer.

Not a whole lot, actually.

Being in southern California, we don’t get the extremes that other places do. Our hottest is pretty hot, but our coldest is nothing compared to a lot of places. That means sweaters do an awfully good job of keeping me and my family warm in winter. It’s a lot cheaper to warm our bodies than to warm our house.

In summer we learn to adapt to the heat. That and fans allow us to minimize the use of an air conditioner.

Of course, I’m not at all opposed to programmable thermostats for most people. Many places you quite simply do need to heat or cool your home, and it’s probably on a predictable schedule. It saves a lot of trouble to have the thermostat turn itself up and down by the times you are going to need the house to be a particular temperature.

We can all forget little details like turning down the heater before leaving, after all. And that wastes a lot of energy. Much better to have it turn itself down at those times that you know you won’t need it.

Even if you have one, of course, you should be considering ways to use less heat and air conditioning, depending on the season. Even a few degrees difference in how you set it can save you quite a bit of money. How much you do depends on personal tolerance.

Quick Home Insulation

The weather is cooling off, even in southern California. While the process is slow where I live, the difference can be felt.

It’s a good time to think about how well your home is insulated. A few quick, affordable steps can help to cut your winter heating bill.

1. Install weatherstripping as needed.

I’ve been after my husband on this one for the front door for a while. The gap in some spots is visible. We don’t use the heater much in winter, but it would be nice to block that draft, as well as some of the bugs that can too easily come in.

Actually, the door has some already, but the landlord cut it too short on both sides. The gap is visible. This kind of work is pretty typical in the place we’re renting. Nice people, but not champion do-it-yourselfers, despite their best efforts.

A small opening like that can allow quite a bit of heat to escape. There’s a good tutorial on How Stuff Works on installing weatherstripping.

2. Insulate your hot water heater.

A hot water heater cover is affordable and may well pay for itself within one year.

3. Cover your windows.

In my area it works to let the sun shine into the windows in the morning to warm things up. But every other window is kept covered.

If things are particularly cold, get some heavy curtains or hang blankets over the windows. These create an insulating layer that can help to keep the cold out.

4. Add more insulation to the attic.

This costs a bit more, but if your insulation is too thin you’re wasting a lot of heat. Spending the money and time to get more insulation can make a difference.

Where Can You Walk To?

Despite that we will soon be getting another car, I do like being able to walk a lot of places in my neighborhood. Mostly to my daughter’s school, but once in a while my husband and I walk on a date, since it’s only 1-2 miles to a variety of restaurants.

So I found Walk Score to be a very interesting website. They didn’t rate my neighborhood as terribly walkable; just 32 out of 100. That doesn’t surprise me since for most people a mile is pretty far to walk, and it’s more than that to the nearest real grocery store.

I say real grocery store because they counted places such as 7-11 as a grocery store. I would have said convenience store for that sort.

I don’t walk to our local grocery store because a mile isn’t so far on the way out, but it’s pretty far when you’re on the way back with a load of groceries, some of which are heavy and need to be refrigerated soon.

The site also pointed out to me some businesses I hadn’t noticed yet. The categorization was pretty interesting… I didn’t know that a self storage place and U-Haul should be filed under Clothes and Music!

Having kids of course limits my interest in walking long distances. Mine do enjoy long walks, but have more patience for nature walks than anything on a sidewalk. Not that I mind.

Overall, it’s a nice reminder that there are many places in a lot of neighborhoods that you can walk to. Some of it is a matter of personal perception, but the reminder that you can walk in your neighborhood isn’t a bad one at all.