The Catholic Perspective

The Catholic (Green) Perspective

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

America is dead last when it comes to conserving resources. I am not going to make this blog like the many about be green or else. I would like to talk about the benefits for becoming green and why as a good catholic it is in our best interest aside of the financial payback it would bring to our lives.

In the book Go Green, Live Rich the author David Bach presents us with many ways to save money as well as save the environment. I like to present this book because it provides a lot of simple suggestions to live green while not breaking the bank. I will present the benefits from a practical perspective. First what we can do at work since most of our time is spent at work or driving to work. The next section I will talk about what you can do around the house to save money. Finally I will talk about the catholic perspective of being green.

Work

At work we can save tons of money and lower our energy. The first thing we can do is make sure your tires are completely inflated it will create less drag and increase gas efficiency. Other small hints that people should already doing is change your oil every 3-6 thousand miles, accelerate slower to get to your desired speed. Some more obvious ways of saving energy is getting a hybrid car or a gas efficient car. You can also see if your work allows you to telecommute and work from home. Thus saving hundreds of dollars in gas driving to and from work. Before you print any documents at work do you really need that hard copy or can you make due and not waste paper needlessly? One final tip I will leave you with is bring a bag lunch. It will save you from eating out and the extra waste you create because of the packaging. As well in relation to my last post about health, you can eat healthier when you go to work and try to walk a half an hour especially if you work in a office. Fine, some of these tips will not personally help your wallet, but help your company save money unless you work for yourself then it will make a difference.

Home

In our homes we have a lot we can do to save us all money and stop spending needless resources. The first thing you can do is plant a couple of trees around your home. It will lower your house’s temperature in the summer and keep it warm in the winter by deflecting wind. Another thing you can do around the house is make sure you do not have a water leak in your house. A small leak on average can cost your house anywhere from 10-20 dollars or more, in extra water charges. Other things you can do is buy organic and less meat. Fact is there is many ways in the house to save money while lowing the amount of resources you use. I would recommend picking up the David Bach book and any of his other books.

Faith

In the last post I mentioned the sin of gluttony. In this post I will mention the sin of sloth for not caring about the world we live in that god created for us to take care of it. Sloth is a state of being indifference or laziness. In our lives it is a sin of putting off what god wants from us. Being green is not only helping everyone, but following the teaching the church has for us.

In our faith, we should look at taking care of the world god has given us. In general as Catholics or just citizens of the world we should take care of our planet. We should pick up after ourselves and try to recycle as much as possible. A couple a few things I learned from David Bach is:

• The aluminum cans we throw away each year use up the equivalent of 16 million barrels of oil, enough to fuel a million cars for a year.
• Takeout food creates 1.8 million tons of trash in the US every year.
• 40% of all car trips are less than 2 miles.

Given these last tips I will leave you with some things to think about. We should show empathy for all that we do in our lives and try to think of others instead of being apathetic to the things I mentioned. God Bless.

Posted by Catholic Chump on 06/25 at 07:10 PM | (0) Comments

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