Low Carbon Diet
Posted by Lisa Haderlein at 8/31/2007 8:04 AM 
Categories: efficiency, carbon neutral, Communication, carbon dioxide, Global Warming, Other Links
Categories: efficiency, carbon neutral, Communication, carbon dioxide, Global Warming, Other Links
A friend mentioned the book "Low Carbon Diet" to me the other day, assuming I had heard of it, but I hadn't. I looked it up on-line, then ordered it from our local bookstore, and read it last night.
The subtitle is: A 30-day program to lose 5000 pounds!
Basically, that was the start of this blog.
As we have all heard many times over: there is no original idea in the Universe!
In LCD, author David Gershon from Empowerment Institute in Woodstock New York, put together simple work sheets that individuals can use to estimate their carbon savings by taking certain specific actions at home. He then challenges people to include friends, family, and even their workplace, before heading out into their communities at large.
The Institute has a calculator on its website that individuals can use to determine their CO2 emissions at the beginning of the project, and then again at the end.
Chapter One is about reducing your volume of garbage by increasing recycling, bringing your own bags to the store, reducing junk mail, etc. He encourages people to reduce the amount of garbage by one can size. For instance, if you currently set out a 90 gallon tote on garbage day, by reducing your weekly waste to the size of a 60 gallon tote, you recieve credit for reducing CO2 emissions by 3,120 pounds a year!
Chapter Two is about using less water in the shower (or bath). This can be done by installing a low-flow shower head (3 gallons per minute), and by reducing the length of your shower. Gershon's suggestion was to reduce your shower time to 5 minutes or less, which would earn you a credit of 300 pounds of CO2 a year.
(I actually timed my shower this morning, and it took just 3 minutes. This was a little shorter than usual because I knew I was timing myself, but even so, I am probably in the shower just 5 minutes on a typical day.)
Chapter Three is about dishwashing. Run the diswasher only when full, scrape off food, but don't rinse items before loading, and use the energy-saving feature to air dry rather than heat dry dishes. By reducing dishwasher use by one load a week, you get credit for reducing by 100 pounds of CO2 a year. Installing an energy star dishwasher earns you another 100 pounds.
I'll work through our reductions step by step (17 chapters), and post it in upcoming blog entries.
The subtitle is: A 30-day program to lose 5000 pounds!
Basically, that was the start of this blog.
As we have all heard many times over: there is no original idea in the Universe!
In LCD, author David Gershon from Empowerment Institute in Woodstock New York, put together simple work sheets that individuals can use to estimate their carbon savings by taking certain specific actions at home. He then challenges people to include friends, family, and even their workplace, before heading out into their communities at large.
The Institute has a calculator on its website that individuals can use to determine their CO2 emissions at the beginning of the project, and then again at the end.
Chapter One is about reducing your volume of garbage by increasing recycling, bringing your own bags to the store, reducing junk mail, etc. He encourages people to reduce the amount of garbage by one can size. For instance, if you currently set out a 90 gallon tote on garbage day, by reducing your weekly waste to the size of a 60 gallon tote, you recieve credit for reducing CO2 emissions by 3,120 pounds a year!
Chapter Two is about using less water in the shower (or bath). This can be done by installing a low-flow shower head (3 gallons per minute), and by reducing the length of your shower. Gershon's suggestion was to reduce your shower time to 5 minutes or less, which would earn you a credit of 300 pounds of CO2 a year.
(I actually timed my shower this morning, and it took just 3 minutes. This was a little shorter than usual because I knew I was timing myself, but even so, I am probably in the shower just 5 minutes on a typical day.)
Chapter Three is about dishwashing. Run the diswasher only when full, scrape off food, but don't rinse items before loading, and use the energy-saving feature to air dry rather than heat dry dishes. By reducing dishwasher use by one load a week, you get credit for reducing by 100 pounds of CO2 a year. Installing an energy star dishwasher earns you another 100 pounds.
I'll work through our reductions step by step (17 chapters), and post it in upcoming blog entries.
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