Amanda and I asked a bunch of businesses around Forest Grove, and we ended up putting the displays in windows of Pizza Schmizza, Joe's Ice Cream Shoppe, and the bulletin board of Maggie's Buns. We also hung some up at Pacific University in some of the residence hall laundry rooms, outside University Relations, and in the window of the Creamery Building (Service Center). We also gave a display to Papa Murphy's, but I don't know if they put it up... Overall, I think it turned out to be a pretty good amount of businesses that accepted it. Thanks Amanda for asking everybody! I can't wait to see if anyone asked the business owners about the displays...

More pictures!

Here is how the clothes looked up close in my window!

Facts!

These are the facts that we used to put on the clothing for our displays:

Save energy and reduce global warming by taking simple challenges!

Facts courtesy of Carbonrally.com

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Are you planning to drive to the store? Grab your mouse instead, and make the purchase online.

Shifting one purchase to online and avoiding a car trip to the store will reduce your CO2 emissions by 7.4 lbs.

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Give a decent item of clothing a new life. Find something you rarely wear, and sell or donate it.

Selling or donating one item of clothing you don't need can reduce CO2 emissions by 27.1 lbs.

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Share a ride to work or school one time this week, and keep a car off the road.

By carpooling just one day, you will reduce your carbon emissions by 26 lbs and save $5 or more.

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Add air to the tires of your car so they're properly inflated.

By filling tires to the right pressure, you will reduce CO2 by 29 lbs and save $4.50 by the end of one month.

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Do you have an old cell phone you're no longer using? Reduce CO2 by giving it a new life. Pass it on!

By selling, donating, or recycling one cell phone, you will eliminate an average of 94.1 lbs of CO2.

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Do you use drive-thrus? If so, we challenge you to cut back. Park your car, and go inside to place your order.

Avoiding drive-thrus for food, ATMs, etc. for 1 month will reduce your CO2 emissions by 4.9 lbs.

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What's the rush? Slow your car down a bit. And stop punching on the gas and brake.

By following some smart-driving tips, you will reduce your CO2 emissions by 133.9 lbs for the month.

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Are you an printaholic? Make it your goal to print less. Cut paper consumption by 25%.

Reduce your printing a little per day, or go cold-turkey for 5 days to reduce monthly CO2 by 7.6 lbs.

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Use a clothesline for a few loads of laundry this month. Let evaporation dry your clothes instead of electricity!

By line-drying 1 laundry load per week, you will reduce your CO2 emissions by 18.8 lbs and your energy cost by $1.40 after one month.

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Knock 2 minutes off your daily shower time.

Reducing your shower from 8 minutes to 6 for a month will reduce CO2 emissions by a total of 15.3 lbs, and energy costs by $1.32.

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Don't just sit there! If you drive, avoid idle time. Turn off your car whenever possible.

Eliminating 5 minutes of engine idle time per day for one month will reduce your CO2 emissions by 27 lbs.

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Are you a meat lover? Give it a rest! Don't eat any meat for two days this week.

By not eating meat two days this week, you will reduce your carbon dioxide emissions by 13.2 lbs.

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Are coffee shops part of your daily routine? If so, try going without using any disposable coffee cups.

By using your own coffee cup, you will reduce your CO2 emissions by a total of 1.25 lbs this week.

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Unplug your computer every night for one month. Unless it's unplugged, your idle PC still uses electricity.

By unplugging your PC each night for a month, you will reduce your CO2 emissions by a total of 51 lbs. and your electric bill by $3.30.

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Avoid using new grocery bags for one month.

By re-using grocery bags, you will reduce your CO2 emissions a total of 6 lbs by the end of one month.

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Do you drink bottled water? If you do, your challenge is to give it up for the next seven days. Use a reusable bottle!

You will reduce your CO2 emissions by 3 pounds this week.

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Pick one day this week to leave your car at home and use another way to commute to work or school.

By not driving just one day this week, you could reduce your CO2 emissions by a whopping 30 lbs!

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Switch over to electronic statements on at least one of your bank accounts. Save paper!

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Frozen foods take 10 times more energy to produce than fresh foods. So Buy Fresh!

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Only charge your cell phone/laptop when necessary. It’s better for your battery and good for saving power!

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If you need more of an incentive to recycle take your empty soda cans to your nearest recycling/grocery store, get your deposit back!

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Turn off the lights when you leave a room, or don't turn them on!

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A hot water faucet that leaks one drop per second can add up to 165 gallons a month. That's more than one person uses in two weeks. Turn off the faucet when you brush your teeth, and get leaky faucets fixed promptly.

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A compact fluorescent light bulb uses 75% less energy than a regular bulb, make the switch to help the environment, and your wallet!

For our project Amanda and I decided to make a statement by creating a bunch of little displays to promote line drying clothing rather than using a clothes dryer. We made paper clothing and hung them up on real clotheslines with clothespins. These paper clothes each had a different fact on them about how to live sustainably (I'll list the facts we used on the next post...) Here's some pictures of what they looked like as we were putting them together.

Amanda did the printing...



I did the cutting...



Here's the finished product in the window of Pizza Schmizza... It's in the far left window :)



yay!

Amanda's two cents on Environmentalism

Environmentalism has turned into something commercial. Companies are scrambling to produce products that appeal to people who want to save the environment. However, environmentalism and commercialization should be opposites. To help the environment, you should not buy as much and you should not use as much money. To me, there is a fundamental ideology that is wrong with environmentalism—buying green. It is cool now, commercial now, and everyone is joining the cause to sell “green” products. Yes, it is good that more companies are recycling and producing recyclable products, however that does not mean someone should toss out what they have to buy these new green products. Plus, our own country has not taken an active role in helping environmentalism, by passing stricter air and recycling laws. Carbonrally.com gave Rachel and I great challenges to offer to others. In addition, most of the challenges actually save people money, therefore logically being green means using less money and not the other way around.

With our project, we hoped to reach a wide audience and not just the students on campus; we wanted families to realize that they could help the planet while saving money. Recycling and air drying your clothes does not take much more time then throwing away everything and tossing your clothes in the dryer. There are some clothes that need or should be done in the dryer, however many more clothes, such as underwear and socks do not need to be dried in a dryer. I personally, always thought that line drying in a home, without heat or sunlight would take forever and drip everywhere. However, when I first dried my clothes in my dorm room, they were dry by morning. I started to dry my clothes because of the ridiculous laundry prices, so I would plan to wash three loads of clothes, but only do one load in the dryer which had towels and pants, and sheets for my bed that I needed dry sooner than over night. I personally, really wanted Papa Murphy’s Pizza to allow us to put a sign up in their store, because to mean Papa Murphy’s pizza is a cheap alternative and would reach many families who would be willing to air dry clothes to save money. However that did not work out for us.

As Rachel and I were walking down main street in Forest Grove, she brought up a great point. We walked by an appliance store and she commented that we should not ask them to put up this sign, because they sell washers and dryers. It shows you that companies would like you to believe that you need to buy a certain product to be green, to be greener than the next person, to show off how green you really are, but this is not the case. Green should not be a new status symbol, as it has become, it should be a way of life that will not be given up on once a new way of life is advertised. If found out from a mother recently that they are really stressing green living to elementary school children, which I believe is for the best. If you teach someone something when one is young, the person is more likely to turn that into a habit forming act. We may be leaving the planet in an ugly state for our children, but at least they will have the courage and willingness to change what we fucked up.

Civic Engagement Project - Ethics & Society - Spring 2009

Amanda and I are in a class this semester called Ethics & Society, it is a philosophy class and so far it has been very interesting. In this class we are required to complete a project entitled "The Civic Engagement Project". This project requires us to think about our society and what we can do to change it, or make people (not in the class necessarily) think outside social norms to help the world become a better place. My project is mainly about raising awareness to the community about how easy it is to live more sustainably.

My goal was/is to let people know just how easy it is to live more sustainably, and the long term goal is through these small steps people take to be more green eventually our world will realize that people cannot keep wasting resources at the rate we are now. Global warming has surfaced because of people like me, not thinking/realizing the serious consequences of my blatant use of resources. Through this project I hope at the very least to make people in the community aware about the little things they can do to live greener lives and preserve or better our world for the generations to come.

Stay tuned to hear more about Amanda and my project!