Al Gore would be very angry with me
May 9, 2008Fellow Tennessean Al Gore would be quite cross with me. Last night when I got home I realized I had left a light on all day. It’s not a big light, I think it’s a 60-watt bulb. The one that lights the stairway up to the second floor on my little townhome.
Still, it was on over 12 hours unattended. So it burned up a good amount of electricity for no reason. I can just see Mr. Nobel-Prize-winner Gore waving his finger at me and shaking his head in disappointment.
But hey, in my defense it’s clear that my townhome is way more efficient than living in a house was. The most recent power bill on my home in Louisville was $80, and that was for a house sitting mostly empty. The lights only turned on when the realtor was showing somebody through the house, no washing machine or dryer being run every week, no hot water being used for showers, no computers and TV’s plugged in and running, none of that. Meanwhile my most recent bill here was just $50 and that’s for a house where I was definitely using the washer / dryer, using hot water, running TVs and PC’s, etc.
So my move into a townhome has greatly reduced my carbon footprint. Though I fear in terms of the commute it’s a wash. Because even though I live much closer to work than I did in Louisville, there’s no reliable bus route that lets me ride public transit. So whereas in Louisville I rode the bus to work three or four times a week, here in Nashville I’m driving to work every day. Net mileage on my car is about the same.