courant.com | Pinning Up The Carbon Credits: "Pinning Up The Carbon Credits
Let's Reward Conservation - And Hang Energy Hogs Out To Dry
June 24, 2007
By SUSANNA RODELL
Summer has finally sprung in leafy Connecticut. I'm reveling in its gifts, including simple sunshine. I'm a devotee of that most ancient use of solar power: the clothesline.
It goes back a long way. I lived for many years in Australia where the Hills Hoist - that contraption with concentric squares of clothesline - is a cultural icon. Australians are thrifty by nature and, even before emissions became a concern, they've been loath to waste energy. To Australians, using a dryer on a sunny day is unforgivable, evidence of weak character.
Here in the USA there are still plenty of suburbs and neighborhoods that ban the humble clothesline as an eyesore, despite the fact that in modern households, the clothes dryer is the second energy-greediest appliance after the refrigerator.
I do a lot of my best thinking while I'm hanging out clothes. It's a great pleasure, a meditative break in my day. One day last week, pinning the upside-down shirttails to the line, I had an idea.
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