Financial decisions can seem complex and at times stressful.
Whether you are planning for retirement or considering other financial goals, wouldn’t it be nice to have your options explained simply and in layman’s terms?
Enough light shone where it is needed to empower you to pursue your financial goals?
July 2019
Do you find it difficult to carve time out of your schedule for exercise? Would you like to do something about global warming? How about accomplishing both with one fell swoop? If, like me, you have readily dismissed the idea of riding a bicycle to work, then this article is absolutely for you. For the last fourteen years of commuting around Charlottesville by car, I have never seriously considered bicycling to work. There were just too many obvious hurdles, and each insurmountable. A nine-and-a-half-mile journey, one way, would take too much of my time. The trip would be unsafe due to a lack of suitable and well-connected bike lanes. And then the weather would not cooperate. Too hot in the summer, and I would arrive at work all sweaty. Too cold and dark in the winter, or simply raining, and my work clothes would get soaked. Until one simple question changed everything.
That question was: could I bicycle to work just twice a month? When your mindset changes from assuming the impossibility to looking for solutions, it is amazing what can happen. Finding two days of nice weather in a month would not be hard, and I suspected the time obstacle could be overcome with an electric bike – increasing average speed and shortening travel time. Minutes could be trimmed (thanks to the bicycle mode on Google Maps) with a route through town that shortened the trip to six and a half miles. The route lacked bicycle lanes in some stretches, so safety was a concern. But then two impediments fell to one idea. It’s July and it’s hot, so starting with first daylight would not only be cool but also quiet on the roads!
I decided to test the concept with my old bicycle. Fifteen years of dust were wiped away and a bicycle shop gave it a good service. The day before my ride, I left a clean set of work clothes at the office. Setting out at 6:15 am the temperature was a refreshing 68 degrees, and the roads were practically mine. It was a real joy to be on a bicycle again, and I rode with the mantra “safety before speed.” Much that I like to go fast, I made it a top priority to carefully consider safety at every point in the ride. This meant walking some short stretches off-road and taking a slightly longer alternative path that simply felt safer than the shorter path. Much to my surprise, after two iterations, I had the journey time down to 35 minutes – and without any electrical assistance!
As a high schooler growing up in England, I had to ride to school every day, rain or shine. To be honest, I hated it. But when I don’t have to ride to work every day, I look forward to cycling. It gives me a great cardio workout and a much greener commute all wrapped up in one lovely feel-good bundle. My flirtation with the electric bike is far from over. I think an electric bike will shorten my commute significantly, but still allow me to get a respectable workout. More importantly, I now see the electric bike as a way to stretch two rides a month to four. There will certainly be new challenges in other seasons, but with a problem-solving attitude, anything is possible.
December 2018
I am a little ahead of myself on New Year’s resolutions this year. I know, I know…not yet Rich…too early. Sorry, but I just can’t bottle this up. The next paragraph might induce you to skip the rest of this email as “too heavy” for the holiday season – but don’t, there is a happy ending.
As a scientist by training, I have never doubted the reality of global warming, nor of humankind’s central role in it. The October report released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change provides clear evidence that we have a limited time to respond. While what we really need is to bring politicians together to work on concerted efforts, I decided that I am not willing to wait. Not really knowing how it would turn out, I made a resolution to make my business carbon neutral by the end of 2019. In other words, I would try to reduce my business-related carbon dioxide emissions (the primary gas associated with global warming) to zero. Much to my surprise, I found a way to realize that resolution before 2019 even got started.
So how did this happen? I used a combination of on-line calculators to estimate the amount of carbon dioxide that is released as a result of my business activities. The bulk of it is attributed to heating and cooling my office space, and the next largest component is due to commuting and travel to see clients outside of Charlottesville. Since I rent my office space (utilities are included in the rent) and drive a Prius there was neither a lot of control nor low-hanging fruit to make good on my resolution. So, what was a resolution-making chap to do?
Taking my lead from Google (a carbon-neutral company), I decided to research purchasing carbon credits to offset the carbon that my business emits. In a sense, this is paying someone else to reduce their carbon emissions to counter balance your own emissions. While I will continue to look thoughtfully at ways to reduce my direct carbon emissions, this approach with carbon credits allows me to have a more immediate impact. So immediate in fact that I have achieved my 2019 carbon-neutral resolution in 2018, by purchasing carbon credits to more than offset my business emissions over the last year!
The carbon credits that I have purchased are supporting the Ethiopia Clean Water Project. I can imagine a chorus echoing through the internet… “Wait a second Rich, isn’t this supposed to be about carbon dioxide?” Indeed, it is. In the Sidama region of Ethiopia, where the project is focused, most of the water is not safe to drink without first boiling it. This project will put simple but effective water filtration equipment (and training) in the hands of about 1500 households in the region. The filtration eliminates the need to boil the water. That, in turn, eliminates the need to gather firewood in an area suffering widespread deforestation and avoids the relatively inefficient burning of wood on open fires (and that is where the carbon dioxide emissions are reduced). The beauty of this project is that in addition to reducing carbon emissions, it also provides safe drinking water and reduces deforestation.
Thank you for your business in 2018. Together we have made a difference.
If you would like to learn more about the Ethiopia Clean Water Project, please visit the following website:
Cheers,