I just read a post by Risa Green on Mommy Track'd that's focused on her "eco-anxiety" (which Plenty magazine describes as "a chronic fear of the environmental future," but which Risa describes more along the lines of guilt related to doing things she knows are detrimental to the environment). I'd never heard the term before, but I can certainly relate -- my own eco-anxiety is why I started trying to be more environmentally conscious in my daily life and it's why I started this blog (when I discovered that it's not really that difficult to be more eco-friendly, I wanted to share what I'd learned).
Anxiety in general is not good, of course, but eco-anxiety can be a good thing. It prompted me to start making simple changes -- and they really are simple changes. They take a little extra time to do, yes. In the grand scheme of things, though, I'm talking a few extra minutes, not hours. Not even quarter-hours. I'm catching up on laundry now after being away for four days, and I hung up some clothes on my clothesline and put the rest on my drying rack, which is one of the most time-intensive things I do for environmental reasons on a regular basis. It took me about 10 minutes to do both things. 10 minutes! I feel great that I'm not using my dryer for non-environmental reasons, too:
- Air-drying is saving me money on my electric bill, which is astronomical
- The heat from the dryer isn't heating up the house, which means that I can continue to leave the windows wide open and the air conditioner off
See, my eco-anxiety has its upsides!
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