Tuesday, January 2, 2018

Creating Eco-Warriors at the Gym

Already, I'm thinking of ways I can get out of my shrinking-carbon-footprint resolution. One day. That's all it takes to lose it. How is your exercise program going? Do you feel yourself resisting it yet? I am.

Humanity is fucked if I can't last longer than one day. How am I supposed to expect everyone around me to keep trying?

Then, I thought of all the things I already do. That's fair, right? I want to say that I recycle. I religiously reuse my grocery bags.

Does that even help my carbon footprint?

I guess any reusing and recycling should help because manufacturing burns carbon, right? Sometimes, I have to admit, I mix up reducing plastic use with reducing my carbon footprint. I've seen it done on other lists too. Plus, I'm pretty sure that if climate change doesn't kill us, plastic will. Let's just allow it, okay?

Ha!

Not one of you complained in that half-second I paused. Good thing I'm not doing this on Twitter. I could have had three thousands arguments in that half-second. But I'm not. I'm here, in the quiet space. Sometimes, it's a little too quiet.

So, here's what I do now:

recycle
reuse
make stuff (I tried to make blank books. It's hard to get the stitches tight enough. But I'm good at quilts and pies.)
resist buying new stuff
resist buying a real tree for Christmas
drive a Prius
turn off the lights when I leave a room
stack errands according to location
wear laundry an extra day if it doesn't smell
wash my car less often

Really, how do you make yourself smaller? I can't stop breathing out CO2. I bang back and forth between swearing off big trips and wanting to see all the gorgeous places in this world so I work to preserve them. That's a tough one.

I plan to plant some seedlings in the next couple of weeks. Because it'll be wet for three more months, it's the season here in the Pacific Northwest. My local Western red cedars have offered me at least fifteen little starts in the pots I leave out on the deck all summer. All I have to do is host them for a few seasons and transplant them when they're about three years old. I love doing that. It's like some quiet form of communication between me and the mother trees in my yard. They trust me with their babies.

You know, I was going to tell you my idea about gym memberships. Yeah, it's a crazy idea, but it could actually put some energy back into the grid.

See, a year ago, I needed to see a physical therapist to work on my shoulder. The machine she put me on to warm up actually calculated the number of Watts I produced and I found it invigorating to raise that number as my shoulder improved. Why not harness all that energy from all those machines? 

Why doesn't the Y connect all of their ellipticals, treadmills, weight machines, and stationary bikes to charge batteries or put energy right back into the power grid?

Just imagine the YMCA, 24 Fitness, Gold's gym hooking up whole rooms full of equipment that could provide the energy of a waterfall, especially now when people are busy enacting their New Year's resolutions. They could run contests for the athletes that produce the highest number of wattage, eco-battles. They could become powerhouses, literally.

Think about all those sweating bodies actually producing something useful in addition to making everyone healthier?

This morning, I sat down and tried to figure out how to actually do it, but I know it's already been done. It isn't complicated technology. My brother hooked his TV up to his stationary bike back in the early 80's but he stopped because he couldn't keep up the pace required by his TV.

This morning, I thought about copper windings and magnets and software to inform the one exercising how much energy she provides per minute.

Your treadmill runners, your elliptical hoppers, your indoor cyclists could become eco-warriors. Get that flywheel spinning!

Who's game? NordicTrak? Bowflex? Sole? How hard would it be to switch up some of your machines to put energy back into the system? You could be eco-corporations.

Which one of you wants to make the leap? Please do it. Our world depends on us.

Thank you for listening, jules

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