California monastery goes green
Bea Karnes
The monks at the Deer Park Monastery in Escondido, California are going green. They've committed to environmentally friendly living.
The monastery has already installed a $500,000 solar energy system. They claim the savings equals about 120 tons of carbon dioxide a year, or roughly the same as driving 240,000 miles.
The solar power system is just part of the quest to lighten their carbon footprint. Electric cars carry them around the monastery, and when they actually have to leave the property, they do it in a 20-year-old Mercedes Benz retrofitted to run on recycled vegetable oil.
From catching rain water, to solar cooking, everywhere you look, you can see, what they're doing. Their surroundings are hardly their boundaries. Hundreds of people visit here every year.
The monks say their ultimate goal is to inspire others to change their lives as well
