s/o How crunchy are you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You left Out a huge one: limiting the number of children you have to replacement level (2) or fewer. It makes most people very uncomfortable to acknowledge the fact that the singlemost 'eco' thing you can do is not overpopulate. All the vegan carless composting you can imagine doesn't even approach the environmental footprint of adding another human to the planet with a life expectancy of 80 years. Really.

That is just stupid. China has one of the worst environmental records of any country, and they severely limit children. It is not "eco" to not have kids. You are essentially limiting the amount of granola babies born. I mean you would instill your crackpot beliefs into your progeny, wouldn't you? It seems that you would want more people raised in this glorious hippie manner.

You don't get it. The carbon impact produced PER PERSON is much smaller in China than in the US in part because of the one child policy.

http://oregonstate.edu/ua/ncs/archives/2009/jul/family-planning-major-environmental-emphasis

I get it, I just wish YOUR parents would have gotten it.

[Anonymous]

I drink my own urine. Does that count?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Breastfeeding (1)
Baby wearing (1)
Cloth diapering (1)
Organic food (1/2)
Vegan/vegetarian/other dietary choices based on environmental impact (1 -- we buy meat and eggs from Polyface and/or another local farm where we know the animals are treated humanely, are free range, and not given antibiotics or hormones)
Recycling (1)
Natural cleaning products (1)
Avoidance of plastic and/or battery-operated toys (1/2 -- we accept them from grandparents and others but generally don't buy them ourselves)
Co-sleeping (1)
Car-free, hybrid car, or car-lite (one car for a family) (0 -- impossible for us right now, but definitely want to get an electric car when we replace DH's commuter car one day)

= 8

Bonus points - gardening and buying local produce and canning it (I'm gonna give that 3 points), natural births with midwives (had two of those, one at home -- how many points do I get for that?), mama cloth (that gets me at least another whole point, I'm guessing), reusable grocery bags/dishcloths instead of paper towels/cloth napkins (1), energy saving measures in the home (1) (this includes keeping thermostat higher/lower than we would prefer, using all energy efficient bulbs way before the law was passed, making efforts to use less water). I'm probably forgetting some stuff but that apparently makes me crunchier than most others who have responded so far.

Total: 16

What do I win?

P.S. If you saw me on the street you would never know any of this about me. These are changes we have been making for years now and we are continuing to evolve. Our ultimate plan is to try to grow and preserve most of our own food and buy the rest locally (seriously!). But we need land to do that ... working on it. Crunchy points = I don't know, infinity? I don't really consider myself that crunchy though. We don't use family cloth yet! When we get there we will have truly arrived, lol.

I am WAY crunchier than you are! And i don't look it either!

[Anonymous]

Nah, you need to hand wash all your clothes, use a sawdust toilet and a solar oven, and family cloth...then you might be crunchy. Oh and a lotus birth.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Nah, you need to hand wash all your clothes, use a sawdust toilet and a solar oven, and family cloth...then you might be crunchy. Oh and a lotus birth.

Don't shave your legs, pits, and snatch.

[Anonymous]

We don't use family cloth yet! When we get there we will have truly arrived, lol.


We do a lot of the things listed, but I have never heard of the "family cloth." I just Googled it and can't imagine ever wanting to use and wash scraps of cloth instead of toilet paper. We do buy recycled toilet paper, though.

[Anonymous]

how about the people who only purchase biodynamic foods? Almond Joy or Mounds?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Scale of 1-10 graded on

Breastfeeding-yes
Baby wearing -hell no
Cloth diapering-tried it for 2 months; too much work
Organic food-don't care; not convinced it's worth it
Vegan/vegetarian/other dietary choices based on environmental impact-Nope
Recycling-Don't care and don't have the time to pretend to care
Natural cleaning products-Nope
Avoidance of plastic and/or battery-operated toys-Nope
Co-sleeping-Not really, but did when babies were young (out of laziness)
Car-free, hybrid car, or car-lite (one car for a family)-1 car, but looking to get 2nd soon

=2 What a relief because I'm the complete opposite of crunchy

But, we didn't circumcise our son and our last child was a water birth at a birthing center.

[Anonymous]

0. I don't do ANY of those things.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

We don't use family cloth yet! When we get there we will have truly arrived, lol.


We do a lot of the things listed, but I have never heard of the "family cloth." I just Googled it and can't imagine ever wanting to use and wash scraps of cloth instead of toilet paper. We do buy recycled toilet paper, though.



Ha! Yeah, I don't see us ever going with the family cloth idea. We do follow the "if it's yellow let it mellow, if it's brown, flush it down" philosophy on toilet flushing, though! My husband won't let us use recycled TP. He likes a soft wipe on his buns. We are everything else though, besides vegan (DH eats all meat, I eat fish).

[Anonymous]

Wow. I guess I fall short of family cloth, but it does not seem outrageous to me. I get points for all the other things, except home births, and so do all of my friends.

Where the heck to you people scoring 2s and 3s live anyway?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:0. I don't do ANY of those things.

1 - Cloth diapering - because I couldn't afford disposables
1- No car - I don't drive and couldn't afford a car, anyway

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wow. I guess I fall short of family cloth, but it does not seem outrageous to me. I get points for all the other things, except home births, and so do all of my friends.

Where the heck to you people scoring 2s and 3s live anyway?

Oh, brother!

[Anonymous]

Before we had kids we were 100% hung-ho composting, diva cup wearing, tiniest foot print possible, etc. Then after the first kid was @5 we gave in on the occasional Mcy D's french fry. Now at child #4 we're like, where's the Pamper's™ aisle???

[Anonymous]

Breastfeeding (1)
Baby wearing (no, kids didn't like it)
Cloth diapering (never considered it)
Organic food (.5, definitely the dirty dozen, try to go to the farmers market, organic milk but mostly because of the shelf life)
Vegan/vegetarian/other dietary choices based on environmental impact (nope)
Recycling (1, as much as we can. I also freecycle whenever I can)
Natural cleaning products (nope)
Avoidance of plastic and/or battery-operated toys (.5 sort of, but not exclusively)
Co-sleeping (nope)
Car-free, hybrid car, or car-lite (one car for a family) (-1, 2 SUVs, although they are both small and get over 20mpg. Also have a small car that gets close to 40 mpg but it's not a hybrid)
Bonus points if you make an effort to compost or garden! (.5 we do plant a garden each year although we are lucky to be able to make a couple of salads with our harvest)

= 2.5, which is about right since I would describe myself as completely uncrunchy.