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Letter: Start slowly, end big

A recent free on YouTube viewing of “Planets of the Humans” by Michael Moore and Jeff Gibbs brought out a very important point I have thought of a lot. It’s not that we need more and bigger solar panels or windmills but less need for them.

When we designed our home, we investigated numerous alternative energy sources and settled on the “German Design Passivhaus” concept. It’s the best solution for design and build to use less energy. This reduces energy cost, our carbon footprint and need for building more energy sources.

As an aside, an eye opener in the film is the amount biomass energy plants, which chop down trees to make fuel, are considered as a renewable source to skew renewable statistics is beyond idiotic.



I think little changes can make a big difference in the long run. The more people participating will make a bigger difference but the self satisfaction you feel will be worth it. You’re not restricting what you do but doing it smarter. I list a few of my ideas and welcome other ideas.

  1. Take the first spot you see at the market instead of driving around to get closer.
  2. When you cook, leave enough leftovers for another meal. Saves time and energy usage decreased
  3. If you have a personal or community yard, leave your grass longer and cut less often. This reduces need for irrigation and lawn mowers and trimmers emit 10 times more pollution than a car. Your landscaper can make the property a Smart design.
  4. If you’re fortunate enough to be designing or redesigning a home, think not of what energy source to use but how you can make it use less energy.
  5. Leave the refrigerator door open as little as possible; it’s one of the major users of electricity. Yampa Valley Electric Association has suggestions.
  6. Change doesn’t have to mean doing with less just a smarter way of living and using what we have.

Making this a political thing is just an excuse for not doing what you are capable of doing yourself. To the students don’t oppose, propose.



Let’s spend our energy organizing ourselves and our HOAs to make little meaningful changes. If you feel helpless and frustrated, you’re probably right but that attitude is what got us here. Let’s use this time we have now to make lists of little changes we are able to accomplish.

They say a river starts with one drop.

Robert Nestora
Steamboat Springs


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