[More US EIA statistics come from a 2001 report. This is an EXCERPT: read the whole article here. -Ed.]

By Elisabeth Rosenthal

"Rob and Laurie Cook are not prone to breaking the law, but these days they have been given to a regular act of civil disobedience: hanging their laundry to dry out in the backyard. The deed to their home — like most in this upscale suburb — prohibits outdoor clotheslines as eyesores."

"'Using a dryer may have made sense 30 years ago when energy was cheap and we weren’t aware of global warming,' [Rob Cook] said. 'It doesn’t any more.'"

"Ontario is among a number of places that is considering striking down the clothesline bans that have been common in North America and parts of Europe, arguing that they are environmentally irresponsible. Laws seeking to overturn clothesline bans are now pending in Connecticut, Vermont and Colorado."

"'If we can’t change simple stuff like this, we’ll never handle the big things we need to do for the planet,' said Aurora’s mayor, Phyllis Morris, who earlier this year petitioned Ontario’s government to declare clothesline bans an illegal 'barrier to conservation' under provincial law."

"And there is a cheap and easy, carbon-free alternative. 'A clothesline is not a solar panel or a Prius — it’s something that everyone can afford,' said Alexander Lee, founder of Project Laundry List, which promotes sustainable technology in the home."

"But conservation experts say that to avert a temperature increase of 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit above preindustrial levels, global emissions must be cut by 80 percent by 2050. To reach that goal, they say, household emissions, which make up a quarter of the total in developed countries, will have to take a big cut. At least a third of the carbon savings in the residential sector comes from behavioral changes, according to a recent study by the Environmental Change Institute of Oxford University."

Photo credit: Clemente Luna