Breaking the Habit

So even though we technically did not have to drop our bad habit until the beginning of this week, I decided to try and get a head start because I already knew that this task would be difficult for me.  And I was right; I have so far found myself still falling asleep with the television on.

In an attempt to track my progress, I have been recording how many nights a week I fall asleep with the TV on, and hopefully, by the end of this project, the number of nights will go down dramatically!  This week my number was 5 out of 7, in favor of my bad habit.  Not a good number.  I have begun to realize that the more tired I am, the more likely I am to fall asleep with the television on.  The two nights that I managed to turn it off before falling asleep, I got in bed relatively early, at least compared to the other nights of the week.  This is a pretty great realization, because not only is going to bed early a healthy habit to get into in general, but it will also benefit the environment.  Taking this all into consideration, I am determined to make this change and am glad that I was given this incentive to do so.

I spent a large amount of time trying to find an article specific to television use and the environment, but really only found studies and journals speaking about energy use in general, which is still applicable.  According to The World Nuclear Association, electricity usage is damaging to the environment due to the  effects of obtaining the fuels from mines, using the fuels, and dealing with the wastes following use of the fuel.  As we have learned in class, burning any types of fossil fuels give rise to carbon dioxide in the environment.  The article talks a lot about the relatively recent demand for “clean energy” and how we are attempting to adopt these new forms of technology to help benefit the environment.  We also see graphs that show us the “base load” for typical electricity use, and just the base load is already incredibly high; over 5,000 MWe.  I know that with all the electricity that I normally use in a day, by leaving the television on for an extra 8 hours a day, I am probably going over this already high base load.  People do not realize how their little bit of extra electricity use, when combined with every one else’s little bit of electricity use, is greatly impacting the environment in a negative way.  I look forward to doing my part and changing this behavior.

“Renewable Energy and Electricity.”World Nuclear Association. N.p., n.d. Web. 1 Apr. 2014. <http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Energy-and-Environment/Renewable-Energy-and-Electricity/>.