Lets reduce our carbon footprint!

[WriterDom]

I'll start taking the bike to the gym. It's just a 13 minute ride and I can shoot a bird at the gas stations.

And... I've been replacing my light bulbs with the good ones

If every American home replaced just one light bulb with an ENERGY STAR qualified bulb, we would save enough energy to light more than 3 million homes for a year, more than $600 million in annual energy costs, and prevent greenhouse gases equivalent to the emissions of more than 800,000 cars.

 

[catalina_francisco]

Would be nice if more people became aware. We have been using energy saving lighting for years, and only lights on when being used (the Dutch are also more likely to use one lamp in the living room of an evening than conventional ceiling type lighting)....we also (well I do and the others are getting better at it) don't leave electrical equipment on standby instead switching off things that are not in use...and I walk most places within walking distance (lol, and that can be quite a ways, not just the next corner)...and any electrical equipment and vehicles we buy/lease we aim for the best eco rating we can. They have also introduced a tax relief here for houses which are better insulated, thus saving energy. Oh, we also recycle most of our garbage waste. Even the smallest change in old habits can make a huge difference, imagine what is possible if everyone puts in an effort and makes even bigger changes in their daily lives!!

Catalina

 

[EmpressFi]

That's one of the things Malin and I are looking at in regards to this move. The townhouse we're trying to rent is within 8 miles of our office and the building will have a gym. I'm not sure where the bally's will be but if that's close too, that's great. And we've been using the better bulbs for a while now..

here's hoping

 

[blueyz22]

I, too bought these new bulbs. Now I heard they contain mercury and cannot be properly disposed of. "They" don't know what to do with them when the bulbs finally burn out. Has anyone else heard this?

 

[intothewoods]

I'll start taking the bike to the gym. It's just a 13 minute ride and I can shoot a bird at the gas stations.

And... I've been replacing my light bulbs with the good ones

If every American home replaced just one light bulb with an ENERGY STAR qualified bulb, we would save enough energy to light more than 3 million homes for a year, more than $600 million in annual energy costs, and prevent greenhouse gases equivalent to the emissions of more than 800,000 cars.

Aw, Al Gore would be so proud of you!

 

[catalina_francisco]

Aw, Al Gore would be so proud of you!

LOL, from what I have heard of late, Al Gore is good at doing the talk but not walking the walk...his electrical bill alone is 20 times the national average with him spending almost the same in power for his pool house as the main house, and adding usage by heating the pool and using electrical gates. He has reportedly burned up more power in a month than the average US family manages in a year!

Catalina

 

[intothewoods]

LOL, from what I have heard of late, Al Gore is good at doing the talk but not walking the walk...his electrical bill alone is 20 times the national average with him spending almost the same in power for his pool house as the main house, and adding usage by heating the pool and using electrical gates.

Catalina

Heh, well I was mostly teasing our resident staunch Republican. Well, one of many here.

In all seriousness though, I haven't investigated this, but I've heard that some of the talk about Gore is basically trumped up by conservative media. But I admit I haven't investigated it, as his message is bigger than him, er, so to speak (another subject of American gossip - how much weight Gore has gained).

 

[catalina_francisco]

Heh, well I was mostly teasing our resident staunch Republican. Well, one of many here.

In all seriousness though, I haven't investigated this, but I've heard that some of the talk about Gore is basically trumped up by conservative media. But I admit I haven't investigated it, as his message is bigger than him, er, so to speak (another subject of American gossip - how much weight Gore has gained).

Just one of the many stories exposing his lifestyle habits. And yes, his message is good, but he was not the first to promote it by a long shot, just in a position to get more to listen perhaps until they find out his wicked ways and decide they shouldn't suffer while he doesn't.

Catalina

 

[intothewoods]

Just one of the many stories exposing his lifestyle habits. And yes, his message is good, but he was not the first to promote it by a long shot, just in a position to get more to listen perhaps until they find out his wicked ways and decide they shouldn't suffer while he doesn't.

Catalina

No, of course he wasn't the first. But you may want to cite a less biased source than Fox News. Here's one.

 

[catalina_francisco]

No, of course he wasn't the first. But you may want to cite a less biased source than Fox News. Here's one.

LOL, I had 2 pages of them at least, but as I'm trying to pack a certain man's things for his flight in the morning, I just went with the first which said pretty much the same as others, then back to packing. I actually first heard about it on the BBC last year which I wouldn't really class as biased.

Catalina

 

[WriterDom]

No, of course he wasn't the first. But you may want to cite a less biased source than Fox News. Here's one.

You think CNN, MSNBC, Cbs, nbc, abc, npr and usa today, NYT's could go on forever, aren't biased to the left? If they weren't there wouldn't be a Fox news to kick their asses in ratings.

 

[Netzach]

You think CNN, MSNBC, Cbs, nbc, abc, npr and usa today, NYT's could go on forever, aren't biased to the left? If they weren't there wouldn't be a Fox news to kick their asses in ratings.

NPR, I grant. NYT, sort of moneyed asshole left, maybe.

The rest of them are corporate freaking tools. You'll never get an environmentally fully ciritcal article out of any of 'em. for one thing, GE, hello.

Personally, I dig the CSMonitor. I get my medical tech and reproductive rights editorial elsewhere, but damn, they do good reporting.

To find the bias, and there is ALWAYS a bias, follow the cash.

 

[WriterDom]

And Fox has the best looking women. Greata I could do without.


http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,133828,00.html

yum

They need more redheads though.

 

[rida]

Good things we do:
Being using low-energy light bulbs since ever;
Do not own a car and either walk/use bicycle/ public transportation where ever we go;
Recycle our garbage;
Don't throw away perfectly usable things and do not buy something just because is newer than what we have, if it is still working fine;
Try to remember to use our own shopping bag instead of the plastic bags from the store (need to get better at this);
Take bath with the kids or do shower instead.
Do not buy food that we will not be able to consume before it goes bad

Bad things we do that we should work on:
Leave electrical devises on stand by/ not turn them off;
Leave lights on when nobody is there;
Use too much toilet paper (women ... )
Avoid single-wrapped products.

Inevitable High Carbon producing thing we do:
Get on a plane to go back home/travel.

Without being judgmental, every time I happen to be in the US I get totally shocked at the amount of food that get wasted, both because the serving are too big in restaurants and both because, as I was told, is more convenient to buy a new one that put the left-overs in the fridge for next time. Another thing that shocked me is that in the household I was, they told me that the reason why they were not separating their garbage for recycle was because it would cost them much more to pay for the recycle pick up service than to just throw away everything together. Shouldn't they try to incentive such a good behavior by making it cheaper than the alternative?

 

[YourCaptor]

Without being judgmental, every time I happen to be in the US I get totally shocked at the amount of food that get wasted, both because the serving are too big in restaurants and both because, as I was told, is more convenient to buy a new one that put the left-overs in the fridge for next time. Another thing that shocked me is that in the household I was, they told me that the reason why they were not separating their garbage for recycle was because it would cost them much more to pay for the recycle pick up service than to just throw away everything together. Shouldn't they try to incentive such a good behavior by making it cheaper than the alternative?

So true

 

[graceanne]

All my light bulbs are the energy efficient kind. We're also moving closer to the kids school, to cut back on the amount of driving I do. What I'd like to do, but can't afford right now is get an energy efficient washer and dryer - I do between two and three loads a day.

 

[Bandit58]

We live in a small unit, so are able to get away with using just one or two lights, which have the energy efficient bulbs. The TV is switched off manually although the VCR is usually set to tape something so can't be unplugged otherwise all the settings vanish.

We recycle most of our waste - we usually only have a couple of supermarket plastic bags full of rubbish a week. I usually remember to take my shopping bags with me to the supermarket though

When Sir is at the hospital I leave the car there and walk to the bank and shops if I only need a few things - it also saves finding or paying for parking I walk to the local servo for bread/milk/Sunday paper. I try to walk to the gym if possible but Sir does not like me walking home alone if it's getting dark....so have to take the car if I decide to take an evening class

 

[intothewoods]

You think CNN, MSNBC, Cbs, nbc, abc, npr and usa today, NYT's could go on forever, aren't biased to the left? If they weren't there wouldn't be a Fox news to kick their asses in ratings.

Basically what Netz said. I don't think they're biased to the left. MSNBC's commentators are all more lefty, but the news? It's all the same corporate bullshit. CNN has a healthy mix of commentators on. It's all corporate bias - it's not fucking Mother Jones. Fox News is an embarassment.

Anyway, food waste in the U.S. is just obscene. We don't need to eat this much! Or serve that much in a restaurant!

 

[RawHumor]

I was, they told me that the reason why they were not separating their garbage for recycle was because it would cost them much more to pay for the recycle pick up service than to just throw away everything together. Shouldn't they try to incentive such a good behavior by making it cheaper than the alternative?

I've actually heard that, in many communities, the whole recycling system itself actually uses more resources than it conserves. The truck that comes around for curb-side pick-up is the size of a garbage truck, so you know it doesn't get great gas mileage.

Personally, I believe that recycling certain items would be more important than others. I live in Michigan, so recycling paper to "save trees" seems pretty silly to me. Trees grow. They reproduce. Plus paper will biodegrade.

However, plastic milk cartons and your tin cans, I could see more benefit in recycling.

 

[RawHumor]

If every American home replaced just one light bulb with an ENERGY STAR qualified bulb, we would save enough energy to light Al Gore's mansions and prevent greenhouse gases equivalent to fuel his jets.

Fix your post.

 

[Desdemona]

We're trying to go green as much as possible

We only use the good light bulbs
We harvest rain water with rain barrels and use it for the garden
We have an organic veggie and herb garden
We have low flow toilets
We turn off lights, etc when not in use. We don't leave stuff on standby
We reccycle everything possible and re-use most stuff till it falls apart

We have a huge compost pile and are looking at adding vermicomposting to see if we can speed up the process a little (at least for kitchen scraps)

We live within walking distance of most services: grocery store, video store, bakery, coffee shop, bank, etc (this was a major factor when we bought the house this year)

T uses a manual reel lawn mower and a sling blade thing for trimming
Next project is to install a clothesline in the back yard.
We use tote bags at the store rather than paper or plastic most of the time. Sometimes, we forget.

If we have something we don't need anymore that's still usable, we offer it on Freecycle.com. If we're going to make something, we look for ways to do it with stuff from Freecycle rather than buying new

In the winter, we wear layers, in the summer, we wear less in order to use less power for heating/cooling.

As we replace appliances and the HVAC system, will go for Energystar rated stuff. If we can afford it, will go with alternate sources of energy when the HVAC or water heater goes out.
We have solar powered lights outside

We still do some extra driving. The public transportation system here is not efficient. I live 3.5 miles from work and it would take an hour if I rode the bus, so I drive to work for now. When we go out of the neighborhood for some reason, we try to combine errands so we get it all done in one trip.

Basically we're always looking for new ways to reduce our carbon footprint. It's a challenge we enjoy.

 

[A Desert Rose]

Not me.

I want to leave the biggest fucking footprint I can. I'm short, after all. And I don't want to be forgotten.


ha!

 

[A Desert Rose]

Seriously... We take our own stuff to the recyler-guy. I do the plastic and aluminum can recycling thing. But I don't make special trips there: I do it when it's on my way to someplace else or when I'm in that area. The little extra coin is a nice incentive for us and we go through a lot of plastic bottles and aluminum cans.

I prefer paper bags at the grocery store but they are impossible to find in most places now. Paper bags sit up nicely in my trunk, for on thing. I could smother in plastic bags here at home but I take them in and recycle them, also.

The price of gas has really limited my traveling jobs. I'm doing only one facility, now and have for the last couple months. I don't drive that much when I'm not working. I only live a quarter mile from Sonic. I can walk up there and then walk off my banana split on my way home! LOL

 

[Homburg]

I've actually heard that, in many communities, the whole recycling system itself actually uses more resources than it conserves. The truck that comes around for curb-side pick-up is the size of a garbage truck, so you know it doesn't get great gas mileage.

Personally, I believe that recycling certain items would be more important than others. I live in Michigan, so recycling paper to "save trees" seems pretty silly to me. Trees grow. They reproduce. Plus paper will biodegrade.

However, plastic milk cartons and your tin cans, I could see more benefit in recycling.

This is accurate on both counts. The soft, biodegradeables are an energy suck, but the non-degradeables are great to recycle. But the biodegradeables do take up landfill space while decomposing. That said, many locales are getting into more creative methods of handling it. Locally, our waste disposal does composting, and automatically filters the refuse for organics. They sell some of the best compost around, and a lot of people swear about it. The sanitation dept is actually something I'm proud of in this area.

On a more personal note, I've put 7000 miles on my car since the start of April. Rawr.

 

[ecstaticsub]

I, too bought these new bulbs. Now I heard they contain mercury and cannot be properly disposed of. "They" don't know what to do with them when the bulbs finally burn out. Has anyone else heard this?

This is why I haven't switched to them yet. I am very concerned about the mercury content.