My mom is the original Ms. Energy Miser. In the winter, she kept the thermostat just high enough to prevent the pipes from freezing. My mom isn't a penny pincher. But she does think mankind is plundering forests, depleting oil reserves, and choking the skies with carbon monoxide. Fact is, we live in a society where it's often easier to waste resources than to save them.
Lawn mowers are a good example.
A power mower is noisy, smelly, and potentially dangerous, and it guzzles energy. A hand mower is quiet and quite safe, and it uses your own energy. We can all agree on that. In the 1970s, when my family moved from the city to the suburbs, we used a hand mower. So my mom cut the grass.