DSL connection back/more facts & figures
Posted by Lisa Haderlein at 5/26/2007 12:09 PM 
Categories: Conservation, arctic, carbon dioxide, Global Warming, polar bears, Challenge, Other Links
Categories: Conservation, arctic, carbon dioxide, Global Warming, polar bears, Challenge, Other Links
The replacement modem arrived last night, so we are up and running again. I'm sure you were worried!
There are four non-profit organizations that I am aware of that are working hard to raise awareness of global warming:
Sierra Club, World Wildlife Federation (WWF), Greenpeace, and Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).
Since we support these groups, we receive regular mailings from them asking for even more support to help combat global warming! I hate to think of the environmental costs of all those mailings, but an willing to ignore them because of the need to raise awareness and help people make different choices.
For instance, NRDC has a board member named Laurie David. She was a producer of An Inconvenient Truth, and is the author of The Solution is You: Stop Global Warming - an Activist's Guide. Ms. David also started the Virtual March to Stop Global Warming, a website whose mission is to use the strength of numbers to urge our government to join the rest of the world in addressing global warming, and urge business to start a new industrial revolution of clean energy that reduces our dependence on oil. Over 805,000 people have signed on to support the effort.
There is a nifty calculator on the website that allows you to see how much carbon you can save by doing several simple things:
1. replace three frequently used light bulbs with compact flourescents and save 300 pounds of carbon and $60 dollars a year. If every household in the US did it, we would save three trillion pounds of carbon a year!
2. Keep the tires on your car adequately inflated and save 250 pounds of carbon, and up to $840 a year by reducing your gasoline use. If everyone in the US did this, gasoline use would come down by 2%!
3. Keep your car's air filter clean by checking it monthly and save 800 pounds of carbon and $130 a year (by increasing your car's fuel efficiency).
4. Run your dishwasher only when full and save 200 pounds of carbon and $40 per year. (We don't have a dishwasher, so I'm not sure what we can do differently)
5. Buy 100% recycled copy paper to use in your printer. Each ream you buy saves 5 pounds of carbon. The paper industry is the single largest contributor to global warming emissions.
6. Turn your thermostat up 2 degrees in summer and down 2 degrees in winter and save 2000 pounds of carbon dioxide and save $98 a year.
7. Keep your water heater thermostat no higher than 120 degrees and save 500 pounds of CO2 and $30 a year.
8. Replace or clean dirty air filters on your A/C unit and save 175 pounds of carbon and $150 a year.
9. Take shorter showers and save 350 pounds of CO2 and $99 a year - BUT, it doesn't say how much shorter! One minute shorter? Ten minutes? I wish they actually put the savings in terms of how much you save per minute shorter. Showers account for 2/3 of all water heating costs! Using less water in your shower means using less energy to heat the water which means less pollution
10. Replace your shower head with a low flow (3 gallons per minute) shower head and save 300 pounds of CO2 and $150 a year - this seems more realistic to me - the previous one was pretty vague!
There are four non-profit organizations that I am aware of that are working hard to raise awareness of global warming:
Sierra Club, World Wildlife Federation (WWF), Greenpeace, and Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).
Since we support these groups, we receive regular mailings from them asking for even more support to help combat global warming! I hate to think of the environmental costs of all those mailings, but an willing to ignore them because of the need to raise awareness and help people make different choices.
For instance, NRDC has a board member named Laurie David. She was a producer of An Inconvenient Truth, and is the author of The Solution is You: Stop Global Warming - an Activist's Guide. Ms. David also started the Virtual March to Stop Global Warming, a website whose mission is to use the strength of numbers to urge our government to join the rest of the world in addressing global warming, and urge business to start a new industrial revolution of clean energy that reduces our dependence on oil. Over 805,000 people have signed on to support the effort.
There is a nifty calculator on the website that allows you to see how much carbon you can save by doing several simple things:
1. replace three frequently used light bulbs with compact flourescents and save 300 pounds of carbon and $60 dollars a year. If every household in the US did it, we would save three trillion pounds of carbon a year!
2. Keep the tires on your car adequately inflated and save 250 pounds of carbon, and up to $840 a year by reducing your gasoline use. If everyone in the US did this, gasoline use would come down by 2%!
3. Keep your car's air filter clean by checking it monthly and save 800 pounds of carbon and $130 a year (by increasing your car's fuel efficiency).
4. Run your dishwasher only when full and save 200 pounds of carbon and $40 per year. (We don't have a dishwasher, so I'm not sure what we can do differently)
5. Buy 100% recycled copy paper to use in your printer. Each ream you buy saves 5 pounds of carbon. The paper industry is the single largest contributor to global warming emissions.
6. Turn your thermostat up 2 degrees in summer and down 2 degrees in winter and save 2000 pounds of carbon dioxide and save $98 a year.
7. Keep your water heater thermostat no higher than 120 degrees and save 500 pounds of CO2 and $30 a year.
8. Replace or clean dirty air filters on your A/C unit and save 175 pounds of carbon and $150 a year.
9. Take shorter showers and save 350 pounds of CO2 and $99 a year - BUT, it doesn't say how much shorter! One minute shorter? Ten minutes? I wish they actually put the savings in terms of how much you save per minute shorter. Showers account for 2/3 of all water heating costs! Using less water in your shower means using less energy to heat the water which means less pollution
10. Replace your shower head with a low flow (3 gallons per minute) shower head and save 300 pounds of CO2 and $150 a year - this seems more realistic to me - the previous one was pretty vague!
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