Earth Day Tips

Happy Earth Day, All!

Today we present a special post from my friend Ted, who has come up with this list of ways to help the environment. Enjoy!

Very easy

1. We'll start with a no-brainer: Turn off the lights when you leave the room.


2. This one should've been drilled into your heads by now: Replace most of your incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescents. I buy them online, at efi.org/store. While you're at it, replace your halogen torchieres with compact fluorescent torchieres on that site.


3. If you have a notebook computer and a desktop, use your notebook computer unless you're beating someone up in an FPS or editing your next feature film. Notebook computers use less energy.


4. Check the pressure in your car tires. Improper pressure can cause bad fuel economy. If you're too lazy to do it yourself, have your mechanic check the next time you get your oil changed.


5. During the summer, close the blinds in rooms you're not using.


6. Clean your dryer's lint trap before every use. Your clothes will dry faster and you'll be at a lower risk for fire. ...of course, it's better to dry your clothes outside, but that's not always an option.


7. Watch An Inconvenient Truth. Even if you've seen it before, see it again. Bring your friends. This movie started a green revolution, and now, years later, I feel that people are lapsing back into apathy. So I think it's important that people keep this on the forefront of their minds.

Easy

1. Run the dishwasher and washing machine at night. It puts less strain on the electrical grid.


2. Turn off/suspend/hibernate your computer when you're not using it for more than two hours. Personally, I think you're fine turning it off even if you're gone for even 30 minutes, but since I don't do that, I can't beat anyone else up for that, either.


3. Stop drinking bottled water. Let's face it: this is really sh*tty for the environment. Brita's doing great advertising on this, right now, showing you that a bottle ends up in a landfill forever. But we're talking more than just landfills: as a New Jerseyan, if I drank water from a certain company in Maine, every bottle has to travel a minimum of 350 miles to make it to me. And that's just the final product: imagine where the plastic has to come from. <Insert favorite deity here> forbid if I wanted to drink water from the French Alps or the South Pacific.


4. Here's another good rule of thumb: Buy produce that's in season. That's really a corollary to my last point, but a rather important one. Stuff that's not in season will probably have to travel from some place where it is in season. (See what's in season right now.)


5. Buy locally-grown food. Why? Same reason as the bottled water. Food that travels less uses less. It's a little more complicated than that, but that's generally a good rule of thumb.


6. Buy organic produce. Why? Besides the fact that you put fewer pesticides and fertilizers in you, it also means less contamination of groundwater, better energy efficiency (don't ask me why, but organic farms tend to use less energy), better water efficiency, and lower soil erosion.

Medium

1. Get yourself a programmable thermostat. Set your heat and A/C lower whenever you're not home. They'll cost you $40 but save you a lot of money in the long run.


2. Lump your driving chores together. Unless you drive a plug-in car connected to a solar panel, you're not doing the planet any favors by driving to the grocery store every day. Spend a few minutes to plan ahead: buy stamps, pick up some milk, and drop off your dry cleaning in the same trip. Help the planet, give yourself more time at home, and put gas money back in your wallet, too.


3. Offset your carbon emissions. Go to CarbonOffsetList.org for reputable organizations that do this. (I use carbonfund.org.) For $10, you can offset a ton of carbon emissions.


4. Stop giving out useless gifts. Adult gift-giving can sometimes get out of hand. Around the holidays, people feel compelled to give the proverbial fruitcakes and meaningless tchotchkes that get tossed or thrown in the basement. If I can't think of something tangible to give my friends, I donate to charity on their behalf or offset their carbon emissions. In fact, for this Earth Day, I offset five of my friends' carbon emissions. You may be receiving a card from me in the next day or two.


5. Replace old showerheads with low-flow showerheads. Also, get faucet aerators, and if you have an old toilet, get one of these.

Hardcore

1. Buy a front-loading washing machine. They typically use less water and energy than their top-loading counterparts.


2. Buy LED lights. LED bulbs are way more efficient than compact fluorescents. Not to mention they last tens of thousands of hours (effectively, years and years) and don't contain mercury. Only thing is that they cost a lot up front (a single 60W bulb replacement can cost $120). That price will come down, eventually. But right now, LED night lights are relatively cheap. I own several of these and love them. They emit a bluish light, but they're bright and last for years. Also good are LED Christmas lights. These Christmas lights look like regular Christmas lights but cost pennies for the whole season and last for years without burning out.


3. Write your Congressman (or -woman) and tell them that you're a constituent who cares about global warming, who wants to see investments in renewable energy and reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. In spite of our last president, I don't believe that environmentalism has to be a partisan issue. If you don't know who your three representatives are in Congress, look here (and also: shame on you! You probably voted for or against them at some point! :P).


4. This may be "hardcore" but it may be one of the best investments you ever make: Get an energy audit done for your home. They may suggest that you weather-strip your home, replace old appliances, replace old windows with high-performing, triple-paned, inert gas-filled windows, or replace your insulation with blown-in cellulose insulation. Check out the tax credits you can get for doing all this.


5. Put your money where your mouth is and invest in environmentally- (and socially-) responsible stocks and mutual funds. I'm no financial advice giver, but just to let you know, I used to invest in Pax World mutual funds before the stock market took a nose dive.


6. Broaden your focus from reusable shopping bags to the big picture. Recycling is good, but understand that if you use your SUV to drive aluminum cans to the recycling center, you're shooting yourself in the foot. Think of the broader picture: how does your behavior impact the world? Where do you buy gasoline? What kind of home products do you use, like toilet paper? When you're waiting for a train at a graded crossing, do you idle your car? Here's a hard one: do you buy clothes, gadgets, and other stuff to fill a void in your life? I'm afraid the list goes on. A little self-awareness goes a long way.

EcoWaste Coalition: Surviving the Crisis with Cost-Cutting Tips for the Pocket and the Planet

I came along this blog posting by the EcoWaste Coalition in my work. The posting talks about what you can do to save money. Suggestions include turning off lights when you're not using them, walk instead of drive, and buy less stuff.

Thing is, these suggestions are for people who live in the Philippines, and are arguably less wealthy than we are. Yet, they are finding the same ways to cut back as we are. Shouldn't that mean we should be cutting back more, since arguably we could afford to do so?

Cleaning Green at Home

Here's an article from the UK about the potential health impact of the traditional cleaning products that you use at home. The article gives scary facts, such as:

the air in [your house] is about two to five times more polluted than the air outside – due entirely to the amount of chemicals in your everyday cleaning products

and

basically, whatever you put down the drain ends up in your drinking water, so as you drink more water, you get a higher concentration in your body. It ends up in our fish and in plants, which we eat, too.

Scary, huh?

I like this article because it lays out the problems in common ingredients, so you know what to avoid and why. Check it out -- your body will thank you.

US Energy Policy, as explained by Gary Hart

I was recently reading the November 2007 Denver magazine 5280 (OK, so I'm a little behind in my reading) and came across a great article by former Senator Gary Hart about how our energy policy is plagued by a lack of political will and leadership. He says:

It is in the nature of capitalism for energy companies to continue their current efforts to maximize profits. It is in the nature of consumers to want readily available products at the lowest cost. Neither will change without a basic understanding that our current national energy policy is to sacrifice the lives of our sons and daughters for foreign oil and to sacrifice the global environment of future generations to our wasteful consumption... Many people say we do not have an energy policy. In fact, we do have an energy policy: It's to continue to import more than half our oil and sacrifice American lives so we can drive our Humvees.

I confess I know little about Senator Hart's policies from when he was in office, but boy, do I like how he's thinking now!!!

Yvon Chouinard's revolution

A few weeks ago I had the privilege of hearing Yvon Chouinard, founder of Patagonia, speak about the social and environmental responsibility of businesses. While he made some great points about how corporations need to work towards a sustainable future, and gave examples of how Patagonia has eschewed focusing on growth to ensure job security and less costs to the environment, there was one thing he said and one thing he did that really made me respect him as a leader in corporate social responsibility.

First, he acknowledged that because of the nature of his business, selling new consumer goods to the public, Patagonia will always have a cost to the environment no matter how much they work to reduce pollution, material waste, and use recycled materials. He encouraged us all to use products until they are no longer usable instead of going out to buy new clothes or other products when we don't need them. I've never heard anyone who's trying to sell me stuff tell me not to buy their stuff before!

Secondly, at the end of his talk, the hosts presented Yvon with a bag of goodies as a thanks for speaking to us. He politely declined, saying "I have everything I need." That small gesture showed the thousand audience members that he was committed in his own life to the philosophies he espouses in public.

I'm not writing this post to recommend Patagonia above other companies as a "better" business in any way. I want to show that there are corporate owners out there who care, in a meaningful way, as much as we do about the environment and in the people who live with us on this Earth. We must find a way to work together towards our common goal!

Consumption: A Big Role in Climate Change

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) recently published their report on the costs and benefits of various methods of offsetting the rise in greenhouse gas emissions, which are up 70% isnce 1970. The IPCC chair, Rejendra Pachauri, told reporters: "Human society as a whole has to look for changes in consumption patterns." BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Climate change 'can be tackled' Well, thank goodness consumption is no longer the elephant in the room! Changes in how we transport ourselves, what we eat, what we build, and what we buy must be made to reduce climate emissions. Now, will the government listen???

Things are looking considerably better than at this time last year, before the Step it Up movement rallied support around the magic number of 80% emissions reductions from 2000 levels by 2050. Decision makers around the US are joining the chorus of voices signing loudly for solutions. For a look at the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment, click here, and also see what US mayors have been up to. I am cautiously optimistic, how about you?