Things We Can Do To Save The Environment - Issue No. 21 - Cozy Up To Your Water Heater

Our water heater is in the garage, so I'm assuming it's warm to touch, because the garage is hot to begin with.  But I suppose it doesn't hurt to look into it...  Giving credit to TIME,  I'd like to thank them for showing us the many ways we can help save the environment.  Just one person can make a difference, and it starts with YOU!
                                                   ~ Peter aka Blade7184  

21. Cozy Up To Your Water Heater

Improving your home's efficiency doesn't have to mean hours in the attic tearing out the insulation. It might be as simple as giving your dear old water heater a warm hug. Wrapping your heater in an insulated blanket—one costs about $10 to $20 at home centers—could save your household about 250 lbs. in CO2 emissions annually. Most water heaters more than five years old are constantly losing heat and wasting energy because they lack internal insulation. If the surface feels warm to the touch, get your heater an extra blankie. You'll both feel better.

Make sure to follow Blade 7184 every Tuesday for a new issue of Things We Can Do To Save The Environment.  Each issue is thought-provoking, informative and may hold the key to saving your children and grand-children's future.  Please feel free to click on my logo to read previous issues.

Things We Can Do To Save The Environment - Issue No. 18 - Ask the Experts For An Energy Audit of Your Home

I know this issue is a day early, but it's Earth Day!  Happy Earth Day Everyone!  I bet you didn't know having an energy audit done on your home could save you up to $600 dollars a year.  And it wouldn't even cost you a dime.

Giving credit to TIME,  I'd like to thank them for showing us the many ways we can help save the environment.  Just one person can make a difference, and it starts with YOU!
 
                                                   ~ Peter aka Blade7184  

18. Ask the Experts For An Energy Audit of Your Home

How green is your abode? A home energy audit, which most utility providers will do free of charge, will tell you the amount of power your household consumes and what you can do to reduce it. The average family can find ways to shave 1,000 lbs. of CO2 emissions each year. Energy auditors use special equipment like blower doors and infrared cameras to help you pinpoint exactly how your house is losing energy. You can also perform a do-it-yourself audit (click here), but this is one time you might actually want to be audited by the experts.  

Make sure to follow Blade 7184 every Tuesday for a new issue of Things We Can Do To Save The Environment.  Each issue is thought-provoking, informative and may hold the key to saving your children and grand-children's future.  Please feel free to click on my logo to read previous issues.

Things We Can Do To Save The Environment - Issue No. 17 - Open a Window

Who would have thought opening a window could help the environment?  Geez, I haven't slept with an open window since I was a child.  And with today's recent events, it's practically unheard of.  But who says you can't do it during the day?  By following a few suggestions from today's article, you can lose up to 4000 pounds of carbon dioxide a year.

Giving credit to TIME,  I'd like to thank them for showing us the many ways we can help save the environment.  Just one person can make a difference, and it starts with YOU!
 
                                                   ~ Peter aka Blade7184  

17. Open a Window

Most of the 25 tons of CO2 emissions each American is responsible for each year come from the home. Here are some easy ways to get that number down in a hurry without rebuilding. Open a window instead of running the AC. Adjust the thermostat a couple of degrees higher in the summer and lower in the winter. Caulk and weatherstrip all your doors and windows. Insulate your walls and ceilings. Use the dishwasher only when it's full. Install low-flow showerheads. Wash your clothes in warm or cold water. Turn down the thermostat on the water heater. At the end of the year, don't be surprised if your house feels lighter. It just lost 4,000 lbs. of carbon dioxide.
 

Make sure to follow Blade 7184 every Tuesday for a new issue of Things We Can Do To Save The Environment.  Each issue is thought-provoking, informative and may hold the key to saving your children and grandchildren's future.  Please feel free to click on my logo to read previous issues.

Things We Can Do To Save The Environment - Issue No. 14 - Ride the Bus

I can't even recall the last time I rode a bus to work.  But the one time I did, I was living in Corpus Christi, TX.  I remember having to rely on the bus for at least two weeks when the transmission in my Chevrolet Lumina (don't ask), fell out.

There were two good things that came out of that experience, I met some wonderful people on the bus and saved a bunch of money on gas!!!!  But just as I was able to keep some extra money in my pocket, I contributed to our environment in some form or another.

Giving credit to TIME,  I'd like to thank them for showing us the many ways we can help save the environment.  Just one person can make a difference, and it starts with YOU!
 
                                                   ~ Peter aka Blade7184

14. Ride the Bus

With transport accounting for more than 30% of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions, one of the best ways to reduce them is by riding something many of us haven't tried since the ninth grade: a bus. Public transit saves an estimated 1.4 billion gal. of gas annually, which translates into about 14 million tons of CO2, according to the American Public Transportation Association.
 
Unfortunately, 88% of all trips in the U.S. are by car. Partly, that's because public transportation is more readily available in big urban areas. One promising alternative is bus rapid transit (BRT), which features extra-long carriers running in dedicated lanes. Buses emit more carbon than trains, but that can be minimized by using hybrid or compressed-natural-gas engines. A study last year by the Breakthrough Technologies Institute found that a BRT system in a medium-size U.S. city could cut emissions by as much as 654,000 tons over 20 years. 

Thanks to high gas prices, miles driven per motorist dropped in 2005 for the first time since 1980, according to the Pew Research Center. The U.S. is ready to change. We're just waiting for the bus.
 
The original version of this article misstated the total amount of CO2 emissions saved annually by public transit. It is 14 million, not 1.5 million, tons.

Make sure to follow Blade 7184 every Tuesday for a new issue of Things We Can Do To Save The Environment.  Each issue is thought-provoking, informative and may hold the key to saving your children and grandchildren's future.

Please feel free to click on my logo to read any of the back-issues.

Things We Can Do To Save The Environment - Issue No. 12 - Capture the Carbon

Carbon emissions have been brought up before, from Turning Food Into Fuel to Paying the Carbon Tax, but what if we could take one of the world's dirtiest fuels and sequestrate it?

Giving credit to TIME,  I'd like to thank them for showing us the many ways we can help save the environment.  Just one person can make a difference, and it starts with YOU!  
                                                   ~ Peter aka Blade7184  

 

12. Capture the Carbon

Coal is one of the dirtiest fuels around and a major source of the world's carbon dioxide emissions. It's also hard to live without. In the U.S., half the electricity generated comes from coal. What if coal-fired plants stopped spewing their carbon dioxide fumes into the air and instead sequestered them—pumped them deep into the ground for storage?

Carbon sequestration is (despite its name) a simple-sounding idea that's exciting scientists, governments and energy companies as a way to cut emissions without disrupting energy supplies. One coal-fired plant in Denmark is working to trap carbon flue gases and store them in four spots, including an unused oil field off the coast of Spain. A Swedish utility is testing new ways to extract pure carbon dioxide from coal emissions in a lignite plant in eastern Germany. In the biggest test so far, a Norwegian energy firm is injecting 1 million tons of CO2 a year from the Sleipner gas field into a saline aquifer under the North Sea. "All the basic technology is already here," says Howard Herzog, an energy expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. A report by the International Energy Agency (IEA) in Paris says sequestration would be second only to energy-saving measures in reducing CO2 emissions, far ahead of better-known efforts like renewable energy.

There are two major obstacles. The first is cost, which the IEA estimates to be as much as $50 for each ton of carbon captured. Those costs may drop if the technology is successful and utilities are given incentives not to spew out carbon dioxide. The other obstacle is a lack of detailed scientific knowledge. The pilot projects are going well, but M.I.T.'s Herzog says, "We'd like to see more large-scale demonstrations worldwide to really bolster confidence." In the meantime, watch for sequestration to move quickly up the energy agenda.

Make sure to follow Blade 7184 every Tuesday for a new issue of Things We Can Do To Save The Environment.  Each issue is thought-provoking, informative and may hold the key to saving your children and grandchildren's future.

Please feel free to click on my logo to read any of the back-issues.

Things We Can Do To Save The Environment - Issue No. 07 - Hang Up a Clothes Line

The Global Warming Survival Guide

I can't remember how many times I had to go outside and pull down all the laundry from our clotheslines after my mother hung it out to dry in the morning.  It was one of those chores I hated doing when I was growing up, but I did it. Well, I had to. LOL.  Ironically enough people still do it, and it's a sure-fire way to save on electricity and the environment.  So yes, how we dry our clothes is one of the "Things We Can Do To Save The Environment". 

Giving credit to TIME,  I'd like to thank them for showing us the many ways we can meet these goals.  And yes, even one person can make a difference, and it starts with YOU! - Peter aka Blade7184

7. Hang Up a Clothes Line

You could make your own clothes with needle and thread using 100% organic cotton sheared from sheep you raised on a Whole Foods diet, but the environmental quality of your wardrobe is ultimately determined by the way you wash it. A recent study by Cambridge University's Institute of Manufacturing found that 60% of the energy associated with a piece of clothing is spent in washing and drying it. Over its lifetime, a T shirt can send up to 9 lbs. of carbon dioxide into the air. 

The solution is not to avoid doing laundry, tempting as that may be. Rather, wash your clothes in warm water instead of hot, and save up to launder a few big loads instead of many smaller ones. Use the most efficient machine you can find—newer ones can use as little as one-fourth the energy of older machines. When they're clean, dry your clothes the natural way, by hanging them on a line rather than loading them in a dryer. Altogether you can reduce the CO2 created by your laundry up to 90%. Plus, no more magically disappearing socks.

Make sure to follow Blade 7184 every Tuesday for a new issue of Things We Can Do To Save The Environment.  Each issue is thought-provoking, informative and may hold the key to saving your children and grandchildren's future.

 

Feel free to click on my logo above to read the back-issues.

Things We Can Do To Save The Environment - Issue No. 05: Pay the Carbon Tax

The Global Warming Survival Guide

Reducing carbon emissions around the world is one of the many "Things We Can Do To Save The Environment".  Giving credit to TIME,  I'd like to thank them for showing us the many ways we can meet these goals of saving our environment.  And yes, even one person can make a difference, and it starts with YOU! - Peter aka Blade7184
 

5. Pay the Carbon Tax

Everyone agrees that it's necessary to reduce carbon emissions around the world. There is less agreement over exactly how nations should go about achieving a more carbon-free planet. Hence, the environmental equivalent of Elvis vs. the Beatles: cap-and-trade carbon emissions, or impose a carbon tax on all users? With cap-and-trade programs, governments limit the level of carbon that can be emitted by an industry. Companies that hold their emissions below the cap can sell their remaining allowance on a carbon market, while companies that exceed their limit must purchase credits on that market. Carbon taxes are more straightforward: a set tax rate is placed on the consumption of carbon in any form—fossil-fuel electricity, gasoline—with the idea that raising the price will encourage industries and individuals to consume less. 

At the moment, cap-and-trade has the upper hand, since it serves as the backbone of the current Kyoto Protocol, and helped the U.S. reduce acid rain in the 1990s—but don't write off the tax just yet.  Supporters of the tax argue that a cap-and-trade system, especially one that would be global enough to mitigate the 8 billion tons of carbon the world now emits, would be too difficult to administer—and too easily gamed by industries looking to sidestep emissions caps. Cap-and-trade advocates counter that like all other flat taxes, a carbon levy would disproportionately burden lower-income families, who spend a greater percentage of their income on energy than rich households.

So which system will have the largest impact on carbon consumption? A 10% flat carbon tax might reduce the demand for carbon about 5% or less, according to an analysis by the Carbon Tax Center, an environmental advocacy group. That may not be enough. Businesses and governments haven't figured out how the two competing regimes can work together, but in the end, the world may need both.

Make sure to follow Blade 7184 every Tuesday for a new issue of Things We Can Do To Save The Environment.  Each issue is thought-provoking, informative and may hold the key to saving your children and grandchildren's future