(HOST) Commentator, contractor and storyteller Willem Lange says that if we want to save the earth, we can start by drinking tap water.

(LANGE) "Paper or plastic?"  I love that question.  It's hard to feel smug about grocery shopping, even at the Coop.  I prefer Macintosh apples to bananas, because the bananas have come from the Caribbean; but when the local apples run out their replacements come from Chile.

But then there's Vermont cheese, New England milk, and local free-range eggs.  From there it's all guesswork, except for toilet paper and paper towels from recycled paper, local beer, Ben & Jerry's, and fair-trade coffee.  Then the long-awaited question at the checkout counter.

I do my best imitation of Arte Johnson's famous character Tyrone F. Horneigh and say, "Neither.  I like leather."  Then I hand the nonplussed bagger my green leather shopping bag.  Mother bought a couple at a yard sale some years ago for about $15.  I carry them behind the seat of my truck.  At five cents' credit per bag, they'll pay for themselves before they wear out.  And it's a good feeling to leave with neither petroleum-derived plastic nor energy-intensive brown paper, both of which have to be recycled during a petroleum-fueled trip to the dump.

Good feelings are nice .  We get them when we drop our pledge into the plate at church, or take clothes to the homeless shelter.  But when it comes to the preservation of our environment, good feelings don't cut it.  They're only a drop in the bucket.

Most of us are free to travel at will.  Flying is usually a better use of resources than driving, because the plane that takes us is going, anyway.  But you can't stop along the way.
    
Consider the resources we consume just getting to our choices of recreation.  Not to mention the fossil fuels burned by ATVs, snowmobiles, race cars, bass boats, and private planes.  I shudder when I consider the cost to the planet of one of our summer canoe trips: six men by van to Montreal; by scheduled airline to the last airport; by charter to a remote spot in the Arctic; later, the same thing in reverse.  Consumption like that can't last.  As a liberal, I deplore doing it.  But I do it.

Still, there are things we can do to ease the load upon our suffering earth.  Key are ways for reducing our use of petrochemicals and electricity.  If you could fly over the huge impoundments of Hydro-Quebec, you'd forever think twice about using your clothes dryer or blow dryer, the two items mentioned most by the Cree people, whose land was sacrificed to send electricity south.

No more trips to the post office; like the airplane, the carrier is making his rounds, anyway.  No more daily trips to the grocery store; the green leather bag will languish behind the seat of a truck that I hope will average no more than eighty miles a week.  I'll vote for candidates who promise to promote alternative sources of energy.  And I'll keep teasing the people who made my truck to come up with a hydrogen or hybrid version.  I may be slowing down, but I'll be the first in line to buy one.

This is Willem Lange up in East Montpelier, and I gotta get back to work.