Community Corner

At Meeting, Plenty of Proposed Green Ideas

Suggestions range from slowing down in your car to buying more efficient light bulbs.

Each person, according to Sierra Club speaker Jeff Huppert, produces 22 tons of carbon dioxide per year. That's 44,000 pounds per year per person.

"That's a lot of weight," Huppert said, as he pantomimed a weight lifter.

The crowd chuckled. About 20 were on hand at a meeting hosted by the Loantaka Group of the Sierra Club—which covers Union and Morris counties—to hear ways in which they could reduce their carbon footprint.

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The meeting was held at the Library of the Chathams.

Huppert is the group's education coordinator, and during his hour-long presentation on ways individuals can go green in all aspects of their lives, he stressed there were many ways each person could truly make a difference.

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And making a difference, he said, is not only good for the planet. It can save you lots of money.

Huppert said one way to do so is by slowing down on the road and not accelerating too fast or braking too quickly. Those are good ways to improve a car's efficiency, something that he said is important in an age when a car is absolutely necessary.

"This is our energy albatross," Huppert said of the automobile. "You need a car to buy a quart of milk."

Other suggestions included purchasing a fan for the summer months that works to lift cold air off the ground upward. Huppert said you shouldn't have to turn on the light every time you enter a room, and said purchasing compact flourescent lightbulbs, if possible, is the way to go.

He cautioned, however, that such efforts will not rapidly change the world.

"The only thing conservation can buy is time," he said.

The world's supply of petroleum, he said, is quickly diminishing. And people are consistently promoting myths, he said, about how more oil will be found in the future.

One of those myths is "they will think of something else" to make sure our cars keep running, even after there is no petroleum left. That, he said, is untrue.

"Who is 'they?'" he asked rhetorically.

Those who attended the presentation said they came away impressed with the material Huppert offered. Some offered discussion points of their own at the end of the meeting regarding the benefits of electric cars.

"His whole discussion about the weight of carbon dioxide is something I've never thought about," Summit resident Peggy Quinn said.

The Sierra Club meets at the library at 7:30pm on the second Wednesday of each month.


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