LOOK OVER THE DESCRIPTIONS OF THE FOLLOWING TWO HOUSES AND SEE IF YOU CAN TELL WHICH BELONGS TO AN ENVIRONMENTALIST.

HOUSE # 1:

A 20-room mansion (not including 8 bathrooms) heated by natural gas. Add on a pool (and a pool house) and a separate guest house all heated by gas. In ONE MONTH ALONE this mansion consumes more energy than the average American household in an ENTIRE YEAR. The average bill for electricity and natural gas runs over $2,400.00 per month. In natural gas alone (which last time we checked was a fossil fuel), this property consumes more than 20 times the national average for an American home. This house is not in a northern or Midwestern "snow belt," either. It's in the South.

HOUSE # 2:

Designed by an architecture professor at a leading national university, this house incorporates every "green" feature current home construction can provide. The house contains only 4,000 square feet (4 bedrooms) and is nestled on arid high prairie in the American southwest. A central closet in the house holds geothermal heat pumps drawing ground Water through pipes sunk 300 feet into the ground. The water (usually 67 degrees F.) heats the house in winter and cools it in summer. The system uses no fossil fuels such as oil or natural gas, and it consumes 25% of the electricity required for a conventional heating/cooling system. Rainwater from the roof is collected and funneled into a 25,000 gallon underground cistern. Wastewater from showers, sinks and toilets goes into underground purifying tanks and then into the cistern. The collected water then irrigates the land surrounding the house. Flowers and shrubs native to the area blend the property into the surrounding rural landscape.

ANSWERS:

HOUSE # 1 (20 room energy guzzling mansion) is outside of Nashville,Tennessee. It is the abode of that renowned environmentalist (and filmmaker) Al Gore.

HOUSE # 2 (model eco-friendly house) is on a ranch near Crawford, Texas. Also known as "the Texas White House," it is the private residence of the President of the United States, George W Bush.

So whose house is gentler on the environment? Yet another story you WON'T hear on CNN, CBS,ABC, NBC, MSNBC or read in the New York Times or the Washington Post. Indeed for Mr. Gore is "an inconvenient truth".

Those are CUTE! If I didn't hate kids so much, I'd have one just to buy baby clothes. (just joking, so don't kill me, anyone)

Wow Jachut! I'm extremely impressed. Where do you market them? You may be getting ready for a really big jump in demand for them. People are beginning to become more aware lately. As much as people have scoffed at Al Gore's inconvenient truths, it seems to be making some of us acquire a bit of a conscience.

When I used cloth diapers, I handled them just exactly as you described. Not as distasteful as the young girls would like to think. What's a flannel for wipes? Just a flannel cloth that you moisten before you use it or do you keep a wet one in the diaper bag? A dry pail... how about that!! You're really giving me an education on this.

Keep up the good work. I am quite blown away. I had no idea there was this movement (excuse me) afoot.

Jack that was very nice of you re: my bushwack post. I'm amenable to keeping the lines of communication open if you are. Somehow I sensed you were a decent bloke.

BTW, I've never heard of hemp diapers. I can't get a mental picture of that. When you're done with one can you smoke it?

Forget that. I might take a hit off an unused one, though.

Those are CUTE! If I didn't hate kids so much, I'd have one just to buy baby clothes. (just joking, so don't kill me, anyone)

Trust me, Laurend....it ain't worth it. Just get yourself one of those life-size baby dolls. You can dress them up and sit them on your bed. They stay there quietly and you only have to wash their clothes about 3 times a year.

Wow Jachut! I'm extremely impressed. Where do you market them? You may be getting ready for a really big jump in demand for them. People are beginning to become more aware lately. As much as people have scoffed at Al Gore's inconvenient truths, it seems to be making some of us acquire a bit of a conscience.

When I used cloth diapers, I handled them just exactly as you described. Not as distasteful as the young girls would like to think. What's a flannel for wipes? Just a flannel cloth that you moisten before you use it or do you keep a wet one in the diaper bag? A dry pail... how about that!! You're really giving me an education on this.

Keep up the good work. I am quite blown away. I had no idea there was this movement (excuse me) afoot.

Very funny, lol. I dont do it anymore, as Eliza is well and truly toilet trained and I have moved on to a Bachelor of Primary Education (grade school teaching) which I am almost finished. There is a whole world of cloth diapers out there, many online forums, and they are mainly sold online, and via ebay - which is where I sold them. You'd list a couple on ebay and you'd be flooded with orders, I just used to have a photobucket account that I could direct people to with all my fabric choices, and styles that I did. It was terribly terribly time consuming and not very profitable but I loved it, its the only thing I've EVER been able to sew competently and I loved getting the word out there. I had to order all my materials from the States which mean that I'd be charging $20 for a diaper (which is fairly standard pricing believe it or not) and people actually pay it becuase compared to $15 a week on disposables, it works out cheaper in the end. I just loved making them and Eliza couldnt wear everything I made so it was really a hobby that paid for itself. I only have one friend who ever went big time, and she had to get hers made in China in the end, which is a problem because a lot of the people into this sort of thing specifically want products that are made at home by mothers, not mass produced stuff made in sweat shops. So its a bit of a dilemma.

I never bought commercial baby wipes, I used to just make wipes out of odd bits of hemp - which is like towelling - and cute print fabrics, and wet them when I wanted to use them, stick a few in a ziploc bag already wet if I was going out. You would be simply amazed at what is out there, there's some huge online retailers that are all based in America.

There was a subculture called "hyenas" that "stalked" some of the more popular sites, Made by Mom was incredibly popular, you'd have to go on a waiting list, what they made were truly works of art, I dont think anyone actually put them on their baby's bottoms! Wool covers could go on ebay for $80, but it was just such a FUN way to connect with other like minded people and make a monotonous chore into something that was fun and that you could be proud of.

And it really wasnt hard. Its one way to make quite a big difference if you've got a couple of babies ahead of you and its so easy, but people are a bit resistant to it.

Jachut, I am really impressed with the alternative uses for hemp which you have found. Bravo, girl!:clap2:

As for up here in Canada, by 2012 incandescent light bulbs will no longer be sold in the country and so it will be curly bulbs for everyone. A lot of Canadians are taking this news very, very hard. The newspapers have been publishing letters of complaint for days now about the eventual government mandated disappearance of the incandescent bulb.:phanvan

And in Toronto we recycle baby diapers, used women's sanitary materials, paper towels, sanitary tissues, kitty litter, all kitchen waste including bones. This - ugh! - stuff goes into the same bin as the more traditional compostables - tea leaves, vegetable peelings, coffee grounds - and then once a week the garbage men take it all away.

Al gore doesn't care about the enviroment. If he does explain this to me. He has a "benifit" for green, but fly's hundereds of rock star's too sing at said "benifit". Sounds like conservation to me! Lets burn 625000 lb of jp8 gore.

Ok Jachut, if yuou don't use disposable feminine products, what do you use?? Is there something that's washable? Or what? I'm trying to be creative but I'm failing. Then again, I assumed all cloth diapers were just cloth triangles that made a sort of ass do-rag.

396: You're pretty funny! :P :P :P

Yeah, let's vote for a Republican! They're so environmentally sensitive.

:fish: :cool: :cool: :cool: :cool: :cool: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

396: You're pretty funny! :P :P :P

Yeah, let's vote for a Republican! They're so environmentally sensitive.

:fish: :cool: :cool: :cool: :cool: :cool: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

Thank you, I thought it was funny!

I haven't read this whole thing which is a smear on Gore, but I'd like to buy a hybrid car. I can't afford it! It would cost about $20,000+ and I can't afford that. I'm for a BIG tax break for hybrid cars so ordinary people could afford them. Without that, I don't have much hope. The old Cadillac I bought on eBay works for Mother, but it's really expensive because I have to buy premium gas. Still, we don't drive it often, and I worry that the battery will go dead or the tires will go bad because we don't drive it much. But it works for mother who will be 87 in June. What are those of us who are caregivers supposed to do? Go broke?

I read some of your comments and we are so much alike on this band thing. I had to laugh out loud and it is 1:50 am. I eat chcolate kisses too and anything else that will go down, mostly not good for me. I am hung up on cheetos chips now. I banded 06-27-2006 and have lost about 42 lbs, had 5 or 6 fills and 2 unfills. I have forgotten what it is like to enjoy food. Slime is an everyday event in my lif and friends and family sure don't want to hear about that! I do think I will reach my goal someday. I have troube eating in the mornings. I started reading on this website and it helps to know that I am not alone! I will read more of your postings and Good luck to you!

Whats a clothes iron!! hahahahahaha

If I could I would like to have a clothesline and hang our clothes outside. The subdivision we live in will not let us have one. I love the smell of sheets that have been line dried in the sunny and snappin in the wind! I remember before my Mom got a dryer she had 3 clotheslines in the basement and hung all the clothes down there in the winter.

Bitter: I'd be real surprised if a Republican administration would set up a tax breaks for people to buy hybrid cars. A much better liklihood if a Democrat were to be elected though.

I believe you're right. If a dent is made in all these "green" issues, we're going to have to give incentives to convince Americans it is seriously the right thing to do. I am sure that tax breaks would help.

One of my favorite cars ever was a Caddy. What year is yours? If you're not driving it much, I don't see how it can be causing too much damage to the environment. Yours is a situation similar to Gore's - only his is on a much bigger scale. His is a family farm, and what's a son to do?