Why Not Lime?

Saving Gas3

Best Gas-Saving Tip Ever, from the Sierra Club:

Drive slower.

Obviously this isn’t breaking news, but they translated miles per hour into money spent in one of their last e-newsletters.

Some interesting facts:

- According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, dropping from 70 to 60 miles per hour improves fuel efficiency by an average of 17.2 percent.

- Dropping from 75 to 55 improves fuel efficiency by 30.6 percent.

- In a family sedan, every 10 mph that you drive over 60 is like paying 54 cents per gallon more for gas you bought at $3.25 a gallon. (That cost is even higher for larger vehicles, like SUVs or trucks.)

- On a 300 mile trip, driving 65 instead of 70 mph would only cost you an additional 20 minutes.

I don’t know about you guys, but I have a little bit of a lead foot. It’s not that I want to drive fast. It’s just that I’m usually late for things.

So maybe my ultimate gas saving tip is to “get organized” so that I am leaving my house with plenty of time to get where I’m going. So that, yes - I can drive slower.

Not only does driving slower allow you to save money and burn less carbon, it also lets you:

- Take it easy on your brakes.

- Avoid some accidents and/or traffic tickets. (Ahem, yes, I’m speaking from experience!)

- Have a less stressful day.

- Listen to more of your Eat, Pray, Love audio book.

- Have an excuse for being late for work. “Boss, I was trying to save the ozone layer.”

So - Save money. Save the environment. Be lime. Drive lime.

Does anyone else out there have some gas saving tips, or reasons to drive slower? Please share in the comment section below! Thanks!

Posted: Travel Green

5 Simple Ways to Start Feeling Great2

Use your treadmill? Eat your vegetables? I think we can do better for a Friday.

Besides reading Why Not Lime? on a regular basis, you might want to give some of the following suggestions a try.

1. Quit doing so much. Give your brain a little breathing space. Do something that involves letting loose a little bit. I enjoy reading posts on Think Simple Now, and I would like to recommend this one in particular. It coincides with my tip #5 today.

2. Use products with natural ingredients. Here’s a great collection of articles on product ingredients and what they mean from Gilden Tree. The first article helps to answer some of the mysteries surrounding what is involved when looking for truly organic products and what “natural” means. All of the articles provide guidance on what to look for when shopping for products that are good for your body.

3. Replace soda with oxygen. When I’m sitting in the office all day, I’m so tempted to grab a soda to help wake me up in the afternoon. Soda inevitably makes my brain feel anxious and my stomach kind of queasy. So, this winter, I started doing “wall sits“. The wall sits were intended to help strengthen my legs for an upcoming ski trip, but they also help to wake me up. Or, if you prefer, you could take a quick trip up and down a flight of stairs, or step outside to enjoy the day.

4. Eat dark chocolate today. According to WebMD, this delicious treat lowers blood pressure and contains antioxidants. Remember that everything’s better in moderation. (Even moderation? Haha.) Also, if you’re the social type, keeping dark chocolate at your desk provides an excuse for your coworkers to come and chat for a minute.

5. Give it up! Spend a weekend day cleaning out your closet. It’s spring, and unloading your unwanted or unnecessary belongings feels refreshing. I recently took some of my clothing to a consignment shop and collected $23. Omaha has a few consignment stores. The one I went to is the new and trendy Scout in Dundee.

Do you have any fun suggestions for me?

Posted: Organic Shopping, Travel Green, Green Health, Getting Started Green

City Transitioning into Green Mecca?2

It’s hard enough transitioning into living a greener lifestyle when I’m just thinking about myself and how I live my life. Can you imagine trying to inspire an entire city?

This blog post on National Geographic’s Green Guide website talks about some of the biggest concerns of cities that are trying to “go green.” There are some interesting ideas presented here, except that I’m not sure how they will all be implemented. For example, one idea is that cities will begin charging drivers to use the streets, so that there will be less congestion, except that I thought we already charge people to use the streets, with registration fees? Wheel tax? Tolls? Meters for parking?

One idea that I think Omaha needs to implement is a light rail system and street cars. Do I have any idea of how much something like that costs? Not really. Do I know that it has been seriously talked about? Kind of. Do I still think it’s a super sweet idea? Absolutely.

Buffet would be shaking his head at my logic here, but would it or would it NOT be really cool to be able to live in Lincoln and work in downtown Omaha, and just read the newspaper on your way to work? Leave your car at the train station and hop on, using your Nebraska Rocks Rail Pass everyday? Wouldn’t it be a relief to rely on a train to take you back home to Omaha after a crazy Huskers game?

And how about Greensburg, Kansas? Have you heard this story? Last May, Greensburg was almost completely destroyed by a 2-mile wide tornado - an extremely sad story - can you imagine having your entire town erased within one storm? Apparently, after the entire city was leveled, the city council got together and collectively decided, “We should go green. It is IN our name, right?” (Quote manufactured by yours truly.) USA Today picked up a real quote from a city administrator six days after the tornado, and then the Discovery Home Channel picked it up, too.

Apparently in the rebuilding of Greensburg, there is heavy talk of a reality show that will document the revitalization of this devasted town into a fully functioning city of fantastic green-ness.

It’s almost too much of a coincidence for me, the fact that a town called Greensburg is going to rebuild their town into an eco-friendly city. This is exactly what makes me shake my head and go, “Yeah, I’d definitely watch that.”

Read this recent report from the Kansas City Star about updates and a comprehensive overview of the situation.

Would you ride the rails from Omaha to Lincoln? How about a streetcar from Dundee to downtown? If you could make any traditionally green item the symbol for Omaha’s green aspirations, what would you choose?

Would you travel to Greensburg, Kansas with me, on foot, for a future Greensburg pilgrimage? Footing it could only be replaced by a fleet of lime Prius-es. Hey - it would be something to write home about, on recycled paper with soy ink, of course.

Posted: Green Politics, Travel Green

America’s 50 Greenest Cities6

… and Omaha’s not one of them.

This is interesting information from Popular Science, regardless. Look at how many of these cities are in California!

When I look at the ratings for the cities, I notice that there are four factors that determine whether or not your city is green enough to make the cut.

1) Electricity, 2) Transportation, 3) Green Living, and 4) Recycling/Perspective.

Pretty vague, right? But I can definitely see why Omaha wouldn’t be on this list, particularly in the second category - transportation.

Omaha is a driving town. The vast majority of Omahans know jack about hailing a cab, taking a train, which side to load onto a subway, or catching the bus.

Sure, we’ve probably done it before. But it’s not something that we’d like to do. We much prefer the convenience of driving our vehicles from Downtown to Village Pointe and beyond. This sprawling city has so little to offer commuters in the line of public transportation that we just recently completed an expressway near an interstate to open up traffic in the middle of the city. We love being independent, and if our commute takes longer than 15 minutes, we might consider moving.

I once called a train line in California in preparation for my first trip to San Francisco, trying to get more information from them about how to use their train, where I could get tickets, how I would get back to my original locale, etc, and the woman thought I was just off the Mayflower, here to discover the New World. I had to explain.

“Look, we’re from the MidWest. We drive everywhere. I have never in my life used a train. I’m used to avoiding the ones that carry coal. Could you please humor me.”

Suddenly she was very understanding, although I don’t think her opinion of me improved much.

I’m going to see if I can find some evidence of Omaha looking to improve it’s public transportation. Will keep you updated.

Posted: Travel Green

Sah-weet! EnviroCAB!2

I think about getting a new car, and I think about what I would get. Fuel-efficiency is by far one of my biggest concerns, the next being what kind of a stereo system it has.

But driving is still pollution, and in Omaha, we drive daily.

Maybe I should just stop driving. Maybe I should ride my bike to work. Maybe I should take the bus. Maybe I could hitchhike to the downtown area every morning.

Can you imagine me on the corner of 60th and Blondo at 7:45 AM with my arm extended, thumb raised, wearing my dirty blue Jansport, holding a sign that says “downtown please”? I mean, I look friendly enough. Pretty harmless. I’m thinking someone would stop.

And THEN I could just get rid of my CAR… no more car payments, car insurance, registration fees, car washes, speeding tickets, cleaning up an exploded pop can in my front seat….

I’d be in top shape. For sure.

This past summer, a friend of mine had me thinking about a scooter.

I just asked my roommate (who rides a Harley Davidson and built his own motorcycle) if he would talk to me if I drove one. He said he wouldn’t, but I don’t believe him.

I just ran across this green blog and blog post about the new EnviroCAB. Do you think it was an environmentally conscious taxi-cab driver who started this one, or a smart entrepreneur? I’m thinking the latter, but here-here. Grand idea, especially for a place like D.C. where people cab it daily.

I wonder what it would take to pull something like this together in Omaha? I guess that Omahans don’t cab it very often, but if we did, this would be awesome. I would use it. If I lived in D.C., I’d probably diss the other cabs. I’d be stuck up like that.

Would you dismiss the traditional cab if you had the option? Would you EnviroCAB-it?

I’d like to know.

Posted: Travel Green