There’s a saying they have in medical school: see one, do one, teach one. Now, I’m not a doctor, but I think it’s a good saying for the rest of the world as well, and it’s the way I’ve always handled the dissemination of knowledge, from how to make bread to how to build a rocket.

Today is the last day of the farmers’ market for the year, which means that it is also the last day of the Environment Wednesday series. You’ve been seeing, doing, and teaching all summer and fall, and I hope that you’ve taken something useful away from the series. It would make me smile to know that every time you turn off a light you’re not using, you think of me, or to know that the next time you buy lube, you go natural.

I want you to go out and teach something to someone else. And I want you to keep doing it. Preach it, my friends, and spread the word around. If you see someone doing something which you think could be done in a more environmentally-friendly way, I want you to speak up. If someone asks you for advice about the house they’re building, suggest easy ways to make their house better for the environment. Set an example for others with your own behavior. To go Ghandi on you for a moment, be the change you wish to see in the world.

I know, and you know, that it is possible to save the environment with minimal effort and expense. It’s time to go tell the rest of the world, gentle readers. It’s time to take the green movement back from capitalists and yuppies and people who want to lecture all the time. It’s time to reclaim the environment, and it’s time for everyone to do a little something.

There’s no need to be holier-than-thou, to sharply criticize people for their lives, to be belittling or rude or obnoxious. Just gently show people the way, and show them how taking care of the environment can be easy, cheap, and sometimes even fun. You don’t need to wear organic hand-harvested-by-native-peoples hemp sandals to make a difference: just be a teacher.

Thanksgiving! The best holiday ever! It’s dedicated to eating food, and that’s about it. Well, if you want, you can feel guilty about abusing the Indians, but I prefer not to. I prefer to think about all of the glorious, glorious food, and I am a Thanksgiving traditionalist, so I’m talking about mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, turkey, white (homemade) rolls, squash, corn, sweet potatoes, pumpkin pie, super-awesome roasted green beans and almonds, and so forth. I love spending all day cooking, and loading the table up with insane amounts of food.

But Thanksgiving does have some associated green issues which I thought I might address. That much food tends to lead to wastage and environmentally unfriendly buying decisions, and to a fair amount of fossil fuel usage. Now, if I was a self-righteous foodie, I might tell you to eat within 100 miles of your home, and to eat organic, and blah blah blah. But I’m not really in that mood today.

There are some ways to make Thanksgiving more environmentally friendly. The expensive options I referenced above are certainly one way, but not the only way.

Go Vegan

This might not be a popular option, but vegan food really is more environmentally friendly. And, as a veteran of vegan Thanksgiving, let me tell you that it can be pretty damn good. I do recommend making some sort of central protein. Some people like Tofurky, and that’s all well and good, but you can also make a seitan roast or something. The fun of Thanksgiving is the sides, though, and vegetables are awesome. Go crazy! As are mashed potatoes, which are easy to make vegan. Or do an ethnic Thanksgiving, which is what we did in my vegan days, with lots of Indian food, Chinese, African, whatever. Play with terrific food! Vegan Thanksgiving will also be significantly cheaper, and less, ah, overloading, for those of us who stuff ourselves to the gills and lie groaning on the floor each year. (Although one year, Tristan and I ate so much that we couldn’t move for around eight hours, and we watched Angel episodes while everyone else made fun of us.)

Stay Home

Ok, so you don’t want to go vegan. But how about staying home? Orphan Thanksgivings with a group of friends can be a lot of fun, and not traveling over Thanksgiving is a good call. You save money on pricey flights, spare the environment a plane ride, and get a chance to spend time with people you like. Most people go to their hometowns/parents/spousal parents’ for Christmas, so it’s not like you won’t be seeing those people. My father and I always invite a random assortment of people over, and it’s a lot of fun. In years when we haven’t been living close by, I’ve had orphan Thanksgivings which were equally enjoyable. If you’re a reader who usually hosts huge Thanksgiving gatherings, tell people not to come, and you’ll see them at Christmas. Imagine how relaxing it will be to not have to clean up a huge mess and deal with crazed family members.

Don’t Waste

Traditional Thanksgivings involve a lot of food, much of which seems to end up being wasted. Cut down on the total you make, and think of new and exciting ways to use leftovers. Make broth from that turkey carcass. Try fried mashed potato patties. Use those white rolls (which everyone seems to eat at Thanksgiving when I make them, so I never have any leftover) to make weird leftover sandwiches. Invite people over for a leftover party. But don’t throw food out. If there’s some Thanksgiving staple you hate, don’t make it. Be a rebel. Do you loathe green beans? Fuck ‘em!

Use Your Oven Wisely

Thanksgiving is pretty much all about baking, but that doesn’t mean you can’t use your oven well. Plan out your menu ahead, and think about how you can use the oven efficiently. For example, I often bake breads and pies the day before, all at once, taking an hour of very stuffed oven time instead of several. Map out your oven space, so that you can fit the turkey and those sweet potatoes you want to roast, all at the same time. Heck, roast vegetables right in the turkey pan for more flavor, less mess, and more oven efficiency.

Personally, I heart Thanksgiving, and I don’t see why anyone would feel differently. Food, glorious food.

You knew it was coming. I’ve been holding it in all summer, but it’s finally time to talk about green sex. Since I assume that most of my readers do engage in the sexing now and then, I figure some of you might want to know how to make it more environmentally friendly. And might have some tips for the benefit of others which you have been bursting to share.

Greening up your sex life doesn’t just help the environment. It also helps your physical health, since a lot of non-natural sex products are actually pretty bad for you (sugared lubes, for example, increase the risk of yeast infections). Unfortunately, it can in some cases be more expensive, which is kind of a departure from the rest of this series. However, it might be worth it. (You can use all that money you’re saving on heating bills for Earth-friendly dildos! Speaking of which, I found a dildo in my garbage this morning. Is there something someone would like to tell me?)

Toys

Lots of sex toys contain chemicals which are not so great for your naughty bits, in addition to the environment. Many jelly toys, for example, are soft because of pthalates, which are not good. In addition to being bad for you, these toys breed bacteria. Glass, metal, hard plastics, and medical-grade silicone are the way to go. Erotic Glass Art makes an awesome line of products which are worth checking out. Most reputable sex stores, like Toys in Babeland and Good Vibrations, carry a line of environmentally-friendly products and have very knowledgeable staffs. In the meantime, use up old toys, but use condoms with them to make them safer, and ask your local sex shop about toy recycling (for melt down and repurposing, not resale, guys). And remember, never share toys unless they can be sterilized, and never use a toy on multiple orifices, kids!

Condoms

Use them. Throw them in the garbage, not the toilet. Be aware that condoms derived from animal products do not protect against STIs. Some latex condoms are, theoretically, biodegradeable. Polyurethane ones are definitely not. Lube-free condoms are the most environmentally friendly, as a general rule. If you’re especially concerned about pregnancy, an especially pernicious STI, consider using condoms and a second method of birth control (diaphragm, IUD, hormonal birth control, etc).

Lube

Some people use it, some people don’t. For those who do, there are a lot of “natural” product lines which don’t use chemicals, sweeteners, and other mysterious things. I’m of the opinion that you should be able to eat it if you’re putting it on your mucus membranes. I know there are recipes for homemade lube out there, but I haven’t tried any  of them, so I wouldn’t want to vouch. If any readers have tips, add them in the comments.

Your Bedroom

Some fibers are more environmentally friendly than others. Bamboo is great, if you can get it, and it has the added advantage of being antimicrobial. Latex bedcovers can be a great way to spare the mattress for the messier among us, and in the wide world of bondage, there are a lot of environmentally friendly options. Like Twisted Monk’s organic hemp rope, hard/tie points made from recycled metals, and various vegan accessories. A surprising amount of household implements can be used in sensation play. Try using soy candles, which pollute less than regular wax, and be sure to buy candles in tins made from recycled materials, or to use some classy candlesticks of your own with tapers.

Porn

Is pretty much inherently green. I suppose some productions are more environmentally-friendly than others, but, quite frankly, I’ve seen hippie porn, and, believe me, you don’t want to. Although might I recommend bamboo hand/face towels for, ah, personal cleanup, rather than tissue? It’s much better for your skin, too!

Lingerie

Can also be environmentally friendly. Organic/fair trade garments are awesome, especially when made from natural fibers like silk, cotton, bamboo, and linen. Or you could spare the environment and your pocketbook and skip the lingerie altogether, but that’s a personal choice.

Food

Whether sploshing or not, some people make food a part of their sex life. There’s no reason not to think of the environment when buying/making food with sexing in mind. Buy fruits in season for a more succulent, juicy flavor. Avoid packaged products and develop your own, er, recipes for seduction. Rather than buying crazy expensive out of season aphrodisiacs, why not make your partner’s favourite obscure food? (Or not so obscure.)

Adventures

Why fly to some remote city for an assignation when you can stay local, thereby saving fuel (and future regrets of “never really getting a chance to see Paris”). Take a walk together instead of a drive. Stroll to your favourite neighborhood eatery and use the leisurely walk back to work off your meal and work up the energy for playtime. Be creative in your home environment, rather than casting far afield for entertainment. Harass each other via text message. Get adventurous in your own backyard!

Books

I think we’re all over the pretention of keeping a copy of the Kama Sutra by the bedside (and if you’re not over it yet, I don’t want to hear about it). But books are pretty darn sexy, and pretty ecologically friendly to boot. Use them. (And please stop giving me copies of How to Have Sex in the Woods.) The written word is a powerfully seductive thing. If you’re embarassed to be perusing the naughty books section at the bookstore, you probably shouldn’t be making the sexing. And, as a former bookstore employee, let me entreat you to refrain from taking naughty books to the children’s section and furtively perusing them there to see if you want to buy them. Everyone knows what you are doing, and it is really awkward when a child picks up A Fist in the Bush or The Ultimate Guide to Anal Pleasure for Women or, hell, The Joy of Sex and a parent has to explain the situation, all the while glaring bitterly at the staff of the store who were, after all, not responsible for the fact that said volume was wedged behind the Nancy Drews.

Music

For more on this topic, see Your Record Collection and You. Incidentally, most girls are aware that when you invite them over to your place to see your etchings/record collection, you may be using a certain amount of poetic license. (With a few exceptions. I did once briefly date an art collector who said “no really, I actually do have etchings I think you might like to see” over dinner on our second date. And, lo and behold, she really did!)

I’m actually having a tough time figuring out how to make Halloween more environmentally friendly without a lot of effort, because I think that in order to make Halloween better for the environment, our society would have to undergo some fundamental shifts.

The key problem with Halloween is that the holiday involves passing out individually wrapped pieces of candy to trick or treaters, which is tremendously wasteful. The obvious solution is to pass out unwrapped foods, like freshly made baked goods, fruit, and so forth, except that this isn’t the solution. Because we live in a society where parents are afraid for their children. Even though the rate of adulterated Halloween treats historically has been extremely low, our culture of fear means that if you hand out brownies, those brownies will be thrown away, because parents are afraid.

And that really sucks. One way to approach the problem would be to have a neighborhood Halloween party, in which everyone within a specific neighborhood either agreed to trick or treat in the neighborhood, or to hold a party at a designated space, where people could bring treats. Since you presumably know your neighbors, wrapping wouldn’t be such an issue. But that kind of takes the fun out of Halloween: I actually really like the concept of this holiday, since it’s hundreds of years old, and that’s pretty cool.

Since you’re basically forced to screw the environment in the candy bowl, the best I can offer is to think about utilizing re-usable decorations if you decorate your house for Halloween, to compost your pumpkins after use, and to use costumes which can be re-used. Costume rental is one option, ensuring that your costume gets a lot of use in its lifetime, or you could use a costume which can be reworked, or sold.

It’s October first, which means that there’s only another month of this series, since the Farmers’ Market ends at the end of the month. It also means, of course, that the year is rapidly winding to a close. Before you know it, Halloween is going to be in the rear-view mirror, Thanksgiving, my favourite holiday, will be underway, and Christmas will be right around the corner. In fact, retailers are already stocking up for the holiday season, which means that this is a great time to talk about what you can do to save the environment with minimal effort during the holidays.

I’m going to talk about Christmas this week, because Christmas is sort of the big “how many things which are terrible for the environment can we do in one day” holiday. Now, Christmas has never been big in our family, but I know it’s a big deal for a lot of people, so saying “skip the tree and don’t buy presents” is just not going to fly. But there are some things which can be done over the Christmas madness which are better than others.

Let’s start with the tree. Please consider getting a live one, instead of cutting a tree down just for Christmas. Now, I admit, I really love Christmas trees. I like the smell, the little twinkly lights (more on that in a minute). But it really is better to get a live tree and ensure that it gets planted (does anyone know of any cities which take live trees after Christmas and plant them, by the way?). And when you’re decorating that tree, steer clear of the mylar and plastic crap. Go with durable ornaments which will get reused every year, and find environmentally-friendly lights, like LEDs, which use way less energy and look just as cool. You can also think outside the box. My father and I used to dress up a jade plant every year, and it looked pretty stylish.

Presents. You’re going to buy them, but try to buy them consciously. Find things that people will need/appreciate, or consider making something by hand. Use recycled wrapping paper, or even newspapers, if you can stand the perfidy. Bows/ribbons are out. Cloth wrappers like reusable bags, scarves, etc, are neat. Try to think of wrappings which can either be reused or recycled: your goal is to keep wrappings out of the garbage. Or skip wrappers altogether, assuming people are capable of handling it.

If a mass rebellion won’t ensue, you could consider less consumerist presents, like donations to charity in the name of family members. But I know that doesn’t work for everyone, and I’m not here to dictate what you should and shouldnt’ buy, although I lean more towards the “shouldn’t.” Homemade presents are also just cooler, in my opinion. I treasure every handmade present I have ever received, and have hardly any of the packaged consumer goods people have purchased me over the years. Grandmother’s quilt? Still in active use. That weird cheap plastic thing picked up as an obvious afterthought that I think is a mug? In the recycling on 26 December.

Holiday travel is a big thing around Christmas. I get (though I do not share) the desire to reunite with family members as a big happy group, and I realize I can’t stop you. But you might want to consider a central location which will reduce the amount of flying/driving, and maybe alternating years where the whole family gets together as a gang. In the years when the horde doesn’t descend, stay in touch on Christmas Day with phones or webcams and ship or mail presents. Carpool to the big family fiesta. Those of you who aren’t as into your families, here’s a ready-made excuse for not subjecting yourself to the agony! You love the environment too much to fly out to grandma’s.

Food. It’s big around Christmas. As a general rule, vegan is best when it comes to the environment, but even cutting down on the amount of served will make a difference, especially if you cut out a few animal products. Ditch the fruitcake that no one eats and go for straight winter fruit, like oranges and tangerines. Roast some chestnuts on an open fire, but avoid the nut mix made with a blend of nuts from who knows where. Look local for the Christmas goose (buying locally may cost a bit more, but I think it’s worth it). Combine baking so that the oven isn’t running continuously. Drink juice, not soft drinks. Drink water, not juice. Eat well, not in volume.

Ah, fall. The sound of crisp leaves crackling underfoot, the hint of frost in the mornings, the slow blush of color along the hillsides, the cold, sharp air. If you live in a climate where the seasons are clearly delineated, anyway. Here, fall is more like half murk, half perfect and beautiful days, and then it starts raining a lot, and you know winter has arrived. I do kind of miss “real” fall, the kind with color-changing leaves and frost.

But that’s not what we’re here to talk about today. This week’s installment of the saving the environment with minimal effort series is about eating in season. There are a couple of reasons why eating in season is a good idea, and in keeping with the rest of the series, it shouldn’t surprise you to learn that one of the major reasons is that it will save you money, because produce is cheaper when it is in season. Eating in season also gives you access to more tasty foods year-round, and encourages food producers to focus on producing really good seasonal fruits and vegetables, rather than crappy stuff all the time.

When you walk into the average grocery store, you can see a wide spread of stuff. Pineapples cheek by jowl with tomatoes. Strawberries. Corn. Mushrooms. Lettuce. Oranges. Apples, spinach, kale, sprouts. You name it, it’s there, at least these days. The vast majority of the stuff in modern supermarkets is produced either in areas with temperate climates where things can be grown year-round, or in greenhouses, where the climate can be artificially controlled. This means that either your food has to travel vast distances to reach the supermarket, or it needs to expend huge amounts of energy (and sometimes then travel mass distances). Oh, and did I mention that a lot of food produced in temperate climates is produced in countries with very poor labor laws? Because it is.

This is bad for the environment for all kinds of reasons. The thing is that most of us live in climates where all kinds of things will grow, given half a chance. Until very recently, all kinds of things were grown seasonally and locally, and then air transport made it possible to pick a pear in Chile and eat it with dinner in Kansas two days later. Now, farmland is being covered in developments, and food production is being outsourced to other places.

This is not a good thing. The demand for out of season produce has driven farms to start growing shitty produce year round, harvest it before its ripe, and chuck it into boxes for shipment. People who shop in grocery stores often have no idea of what real food tastes like, and I don’t mean this in a condescending, “if you aren’t eating all organic hand harvested food from within 25 miles of your doorstep you are worthless” kind of way. Markets have definitely pushed the demand for out of season produce, to the point that people don’t really know what’s in season when, and they don’t realize what they’re missing out on. You’re used to getting fresh tomatoes all year, so much so that you may not even notice that your fresh tomatoes all taste alike: dry, flavorless, slightly woody. Or mushy, crystalline, and flavorless.

So, eat in season. It might be challenging at first, especially if you live somewhere in the north, where pickings are slim in the winter. But if you only eat what’s in season, you might find yourself coming up with new dishes, and inventive ways to cook all sorts of things. Start canning in the summer when more things are available, so that you will have things to eat in the winter. Turn away from that hard, milky tomato in December and go eat a delicious, juicy orange (which, yes, may have to be shipped to you, but at least it’s in season). Numerous listings of seasonal produce by region can be found on the Internet; I trust that you are capable of looking them up.

Fruits and vegetables might acquire a whole new flavor for you, if you give them half a chance.

Californians! Tomorrow is California Coastal Cleanup Day, a state-wide beach cleanup event which pretty much guarantees fun times and garbage. There are drop-in spots all over the state (find yours here). Just show up in sturdy shoes (and with the regular complement of clothes) at 9:00 AM and the local coordinators will provide you with the rest. Yay clean beaches.

I was talking with a friend recently about the things we view as necessities, and how our views of necessities change, depending on our environment. In this particular context, the discussion was about soap, a product which seems less necessary when one is camping than when one is living in the civilized world, but the conversation got me thinking about clothing, something which most people agree is a necessity.

Whether your view clothing as a purely functional thing, or a concession to societal standards, chances are that you probably own some, and you also buy some periodically. Clothing can have a huge environmental impact, so it’s worth considering in the ongoing Environment Wednesday series.

Your choice of fibers and sourcing doesn’t just impact the environment, it also impacts human welfare. And while this series is primarily about the environment, I think that sweatshop labor conditions are also something worthy of discussing, especially since they play into a larger framework of issues. Sweatshops wouldn’t be so profitable or so abundant if the West didn’t have an unceasing demand for more consumer goods, and if we put the brakes on that demand, we wouldn’t just help the environment, we would also probably be able to promote safer working conditions and better welfare for our fellow humans.

When you buy clothing, you get a choice to make a direct statement about sweatshops, and how you feel about the environment. Do you buy organic sweatshop-free cotton, or made-in-Taiwan polyester? Silk of questionable provenance? Buying clothing is becoming a highly politically charged act, these days.

I’m a huge fan of buying natural fibers, for a variety of reasons, but ultimately, your fiber choices are up to you. You might want to think about the fact that cotton consumes a lot of water, or that silk worms are boiled alive to obtain commercial silk. Pretty much any fiber is full of pitfalls, and sometimes you are forced to choose between the lesser of two evils. You do need to wear something, after all.

I also firmly support buying used, when you can, and donating/selling clothing you aren’t wearing anymore, which was my major project last week. Sorting through your closets and dressers can be time-consuming, but you might find that it frees up some space, reveals some clothes you had forgotten you had, and yields a pile of stuff which you can sell on consignment, donate to charity, or cut up and use as rags. It’s all about making your clothes count, in my opinion, and better to see someone else wearing something that doesn’t fit anymore than to leave it moldering in the bottom of a drawer.

Now, I have to admit that I tend to buy a lot of clothing new, although I did pick up some nice used stuff at If the Shoe Fits recently. I buy new because, quite frankly, used clothing for fat people is often hard to come by, and it frequently looks…not so great. I like to dress decently, and sometimes even well, and I suspect that a lot of you feel the same way. At the same time, though, I try my best to seek out clothing on sale, rather than supporting inflated fashion prices, and, when I can, I try to buy ethically-sourced clothing. Unfortunately, a lot of ethical manufacturers make clothing which is, quite frankly, ugly, and this sets up a conundrum: do I override my ethics for the sake of aesthetics, or do I condemn myself to wearing sacks? Especially when I consider the fact that most ethical manufacturers do not have fat-friendly lines, I often end up turning to evil corporations for my clothing, and that makes me feel uncomfortable.

I do think that the fashion industry has spiraled out of control in a lot of senses, and I struggle with the view of clothes as commodities. I think that clothes can be functional and beautiful, but I have a tough time with the idea that clothes should cost hundreds (or thousands) of dollars. I think that the fashion industry feeds a lot of negatives, and I’m not always sure I like how much I buy into it.

If any of my readers know of an ethical, fat-friendly clothing manufacturer that makes nice clothes, I would love to hear about it. And, locals, I would like to put in a major plug for If the She Fits, because it is a pretty awesome store, and Hillary is extremely nice and always very helpful. She also has awesome consignment terms, for those of you who are cleaning out your closets.

I’ve talked about pee, now it’s time to talk about poo. And I know that you have all eagerly been awaiting this post. There are lots of kinds of poo in the world. There’s adult human poo, baby poo, and animal poo, just to create three rough categories, and there are different things which can be done with all these kinds of poo. If you care about the environment, you should be thinking about poo.

Now with your basic adult human poo, most people go for the toilet disposal method. Which is fine, I mean you need to get rid of it somehow, and when you flush poo, it goes through sewage treatment, which removes a lot of potentially harmful pathogens. That’s good. But you should be using a low-water toilet, at least as low as you can go without running into flushing problems.

And…you might want to think about human composting. This is for advanced players, but it is possible to compost poo pretty neatly, and with minimal smell. You can even buy composting units. While not generally recommended for plants you are going to eat, humanure can be great for flower gardens. Just a thought.

Baby poo is a bit more tricky. I am a big fan of cloth diapers, for a couple of reasons. The first is that when parents use cloth diapers, they usually rinse them in the toilet and then wash them, and that means that the poo is getting processed through a wastewater plant, which removes pathogens that could potentially hurt the environment. This is good. The second, of course, is that cloth diapers get reused, instead of winding up in landfills, and I am a huge fan of that action. I understand that sometimes disposables are just necessary, especially when traveling, but for your basic baby needs, I am a huge fan of cloth.

Animal poo has a lot of different uses. Pet poo, as a general rule, should not be allowed to sit around. There are a couple of reasons for this. The first is that no one likes to encounter poo, and when your dog craps on the sidewalk or your cat takes a dump in the neighbor’s garden, someone has to deal with that, and that someone may get kind of annoyed. The second is that when you leave poo out willy-nilly, guess where it ends up? Mostly in the ocean, where the pathogens in the poo hurt the cute wittle ocean animals. And we don’t like that. So, animal poo should be scooped and trashed or scooped and flushed. Flushing means it goes through treatment: trashing means that the poo eventually winds up in a landfill, where it may or may not leach disgusting poo-borne-disease into the surrounding area, depending on how secure the landfill is. Your choice.

Also, cat owners, please stop using clay litters and clumping litters. First of all, those litters smell really disgusting. You know that catch at the back of your throat “cat stench”? Yeah, that’s not cats, it’s what happens when cat pee hangs out in a clay litter box, and it is disgusting for everyone, including the cat. Clumping litters also clump inside the cat, causing a variety of gastrointestinal problems which ultimately translate into expensive surgery. So stop using them, please. I am a huge fan of pine litters, which smell good, use material which would get landfilled anyway, and don’t hurt your cat. Good Mews, a product made with recycled newspapers, is also pretty good. But don’t get that wheat chaff stuff. That stuff is nasty.

If you’ve got farm animals, I’m going to assume that you already know what to do with their poo, since I doubt that the kind of people who keep farm animals as novelties read this website, unless they like being trashed at least once a week. If you do happen to be one of those execrable (pardon the pun) people, you should be using your manure to fertilize your garden. But let it age a bit first, because raw manure is tough on plants.

Anyone with poo tips to add…feel free to chime in!

This week’s edition of “saving the environment with minimal effort” is for those of my readers who have cars. The rest of you may pat yourself on the backs with smug self-importance and move on to more exciting topics, like Flow TV, a journal of media studies which I’ve been reading compulsively for several days.

Mr. Obama recently caught a lot of flak for suggesting that people could improve gas efficiency by keeping their tires properly inflated, but he was actually right. If you keep a car in good working order, it’s going to be more energy-efficient, and it’s also going to run more cleanly. Which means that you aren’t going to spend as much money on fuel, and you’re going to be reducing your overall emissions.

Checking the amount of air in your tires is only the beginning, but it’s a good first step. If all American drivers did it, I daresay it would actually make a big difference. Here’s what you need to do: buy a tire gauge (don’t trust the gauges at gas stations, because they are often poorly calibrated). Go to a gas station which has an air pump (in California, gas stations have to provide free air and water, incidentally). Pull up to the air pump, and check your owner’s manual or the side-panel on the driver’s side door to see what the inflation recommendation for your tires is. Use the tire gauge to check, and add air if needed. You’ll find that your car often drives easier with properly inflated tires.

In addition to keeping your tires inflated, you should:

• Make sure that your tires are in good shape, with lots of tread wear left. Worn tires are dangerous, and they make your car less efficient.
• Get your oil changed regularly, and make sure that the air filter is changed at the same time.
• Get regular tune-ups for your car.
• Keep an ear on the sounds of your car and engine. If something sounds funny, get it checked out, because it probably is funny. Don’t mess around; some weird noises are dangerous, and I like my readers alive and well.

Taking care of your car can sometimes require a little outlay of cash now and then, but it’s well worth it in the long run. Your car will run better and run longer, which means you don’t have to spend money on a new car, or on stupid repairs that you could have avoided by taking care of your car in the first place.

If you’re going to drive, you might as well make it as environmentally friendly as possible.

And hey, while you’re at it, why don’t you think about organizing a carpool?