Pitchers with a charcoal and ion exchange filter work pretty well at improving the taste in most places.
His sister took him down to REI to buy shoes over Easter break (of course she got the dividend perk on her membership). His bestie told him that buying shoes is like going to Olivander’s. The right shoes choose you.
It’s funny how the shoes make such a difference. Some people like theirs so tight that they can’t even walk in them, and have to take them off between climbs. They just have to feel right. Too big, you slip, too tight, they’re painful.
But what if he flew an energy-efficient private jet? Better than some old kerosene guzzler! 
Someone mentioned grocery bags… My gripe is grocery bags made of plastic so thin that clerks need to triple-bag everything. So in the end, this strategy results in more plastic in the environment, not less as the makers of those thin bags intended.
My gripe is plastic grocery bags so thin that they break and you can’t safely use them to pick up after the dog. I usually use paper or the reusable ones for my groceries - only plastic when the stash runs low. I like to have some paper around as well because I use them for other things at home.
I have a friend who uses one of those composting doggy-do things but her dog is about 10 pounds wet. I can’t get my mind around that with my dog’s output. Now if I could only train her to use a composting toilet I could get DH to build a little outhouse in the side yard. Hmmmmm . . . Something will have to be done after her boy goes off to college. Puppy pick-up is normally his job.
Talk about trying to use those to clean my three catboxes!
I do think that CA is on to something by banning single-use plastic bags. One of these days I’m really going to get into the habit of bringing my own bags. It’s a matter of carrying sturdier ones around in the car. God knows I have enough of them around.
I am very diligent about taking them back for recycling, though. About 99% compliant there.
Many of our WA cities have banned them
I am not sure where the hypocrisy is supposed to be in this - on the surface it looks bad, but there is an important point to be made:
*Green does not equal communist! *
We all need to conserve more and pollute and consume less, but that doesn’t mean that we all have to have the exact same carbon footprint. A true communist state might make such a requirement, but we are not such a state and the people mentioned on this thread are not communists either - indeed, they all appear to be pretty successful capitalists! They (and we) need to spread less carbon than our predecessors, but that doesn’t mean that the rich will not pollute more than the poor will, nor that anything in our society gives any reason to expect that they would do so.
Now if some them have increased their carbon footprint relative to their wealth, then that is certainly worthy of scrutiny and perhaps scorn, but so long as we are a capitalist society and so long as the total allowable carbon footprint is greater than the absolute minimum required for the population, rich people will expend more carbon than poor people, even when they advocate worldwide reductions.
I’m all for that! Ban them or provide them, but please don’t do the half measures like these super thin bags that cannot support the weight of a single tuna can.
Getting rid of disposables is almost always a good thing. Plastic water bottles, plastic/paper grocery bags, etc. Replacing them with durable copies trades a small amount of convenience for a large amount of conservation. We don’t need to get rid of every single one, but we should minimize as much as we can.
“Now if some them have increased their carbon footprint relative to their wealth, then that is certainly worthy of scrutiny and perhaps scorn, but so long as we are a capitalist society and so long as the total allowable carbon footprint is greater than the absolute minimum required for the population, rich people will expend more carbon than poor people, even when they advocate worldwide reductions.”
Okay, but there are some actions that people take that make them extremely heavy polluters. Flying a private jet, burning all that fuel for just one person-while lecturing everyone else to cut back, is rather creepy. Maybe he’s cutting back if he only flies a couple times a week, cutting down on one trip? Or maybe he balances out one trip by never using plastic bags…for the rest of his life.
The problem with reusable plastic water bottles is that they’re still plastic. D1 worked at a summer camp for years. A day camp in the DC area. By August their lost and found would have hundreds of those bottles and they were never reclaimed. This camp made their own biodiesel for their buses and was very environmentally careful but when kids get careless, they get careless, and they leave their waste behind - mostly hard plastic bottles and lunch totes.
Two questions come to mind. First, as you noted, are they flying private significantly less than they (or their predecessors in wealthy extravagance) previously were? Alternately, if the purpose of the flight is to spur others to reduce their footprint, is the pollution justified by the resultant pollution reduction? I say this because many cost-cutting measures require substantial initial outlays, and the task of raising money can be quite expensive, especially when trying to convince people who have little interest in contributing.
I don’t have any particular attachment to any of these people, but I’m tired of people confusing hypocrisy for consistency.
I’ve heard that the biggest effect we can have on the environment is decided by whether or not to have a child.
Nice… just found out tonight that my niece is expecting #6! (oldest one is just finishing second grade).
[Some celebs aren’t * all* talk.](http://pearljam.com/activism/carbon-mitigation)
I prefer the " single use " bags from the grocery store…they are anything but single use to me. I use them for trash can liners and also use in my kitchen for food waste as I prep food. And I also drop them off at the local park where people commonly walk their dogs. Since well water is primary source of water in my town , I am more offended by the poop that people just leave behind . I have been caught unprepared at the same park when I have a shortage of bags ( my female likes to make herself known, shall we say ) There is a 1.3 mile loop surrounding the athletic fields and three posts with dog waste bags and recepticals , I stop by when my stash gets too large. I am not the only one who refills at the park, thank goodness
Obviously, anybody with a pet shouldn’t criticize anybody else’s carbon footprint. Right?
Some people produce more than others and “burning all that fuel” is a necessary part of doing business. Alcoa uses a lot of energy, too.