Climate Change: What You Can Do

The two places where you can reduce your carbon footprint the fastest? Your personal household energy consumption is 27% of your total carbon footprint; your transportation habits are 19%. Some changes are small, some large. Do the best you can. The internet bibliography below is loaded with more suggestions.

“We have less than TEN YEARS to make the changes necessary to prevent major disastrous climate change.”
—Dr. James E. Hansen, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies

TO REDUCE YOUR ENERGY FOOTPRINT:

• Pay your local utility the trivial extra fee they charge for supporting renewable energy.
• Control your gadgets! Set your computer to sleep soon after you leave your desk. Turn off your computer, TV, stereo when not in use. Put a surge protector in-line between your AC outlets and your gadgets; turning off the entire surge protector eliminates standby power demand.
• Use energy-efficient appliances.
• Air-dry clothing.
• Put motion detectors on light switches.
• Change to CFL light bulbs. Watch for next generation, gel colored bulbs.
• At home in winter: wear an extra sweater and warmer slippers and turn down the thermostat.
• At home in summer: don't air condition your rooms so cold; use a fan, swamp cooler, or fresh air for cooling if possible.
• Install programmable thermostats.
• Use caulk or weather stripping to seal up any air leaks around windows and doors.
• Use ceiling fans to circulate warm air in winter, especially in rooms with high ceilings.
• buy a energy power meter and measure all your appliances and electronics to find the biggest energy hogs and standby losses in the house, make a list
• put the water heater temperature to 120 degrees
• install a water heater blanket and/or buy a new efficient electric heat pump water heater (uses 65% less energy) or a condensing gas/oil water heater
• insulate your hot water pipes 100% of the pipe length
• install low flow shower heads (1.6 gallon/minute or less ) and faucets
• wash clothes when possible with cold water
• if you have a top loading washing machine buy a much more efficient front loading model
• if you have figured out that your old refrigerator model is inefficient buy a new efficient one. Put the refrigerator temperature to 37 and the freezer temperature to 5 degrees

TO REDUCE YOUR TRANSPORTATION FOOTPRINT:

• Drive less, drive smarter.
• Fly less, teleconference more.
• For a personal carbon tax more meaningful than paying a carbon offset and more immediate than waiting for the government to act, invest in a hybrid car.
• Use public transport or a bike (if you're in a place where these solutions make sense).
• Stop drinking bottled water unless your local water is really awful (transporting premium water creates a huge carbon footprint).
• Consider the possibility that you don't need to eat strawberries from Chile and kiwi from New Zealand year-round. Eat fruit more suited to the seasons of your home continent.

Web Links

We Can Solve It
http://www.wecansolveit.org

ConEdison
http://www.coned.com/thepowerofgreen/100tips.asp

Energy Information Administration
http://www.eia.doe.gov

National Geographic Climate Connection
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/climateconnections

National Religious Partnership for the Environment
http://www.nrpe.org

National Renewable Energy Lab
http://www.nrel.gov

National Resources Defense Council
http://www.nrdc.org

United Nations Environment Programme
http://www.unep.org

Polar-Palooza
http://passporttoknowledge.com/polar-palooza/whatyoucando/

Take AIM at Climate Change:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08z-Hw7s54E

Compare your household's energy use to others
http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?fuseaction=HOME_ENERGY_YARDSTICK.showGetStarted

Tips in a Timeframe: What I can do - Today - This week - This month – Beyond
http://www.fypower.org/res/upgrade/

Success Stories
http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/Conservation/conservation.htm#IDidIt

Master Return On Investment Table
http://www.greenandsave.com/master_roi_table.html

Good Checklist "What You Can Do To Save Energy
http://www.massenergy.com/Eff.Tips.html

Top 5 Areas to Save Energy Around the Home
http://www.renewzle.com/ways_to_save_energy_around_the_home

Energy Saving Tips - Free / Low Cost / Good Investments
http://www.fypower.org/res/tools/energy_tips.html

Especially for Students:

Six Degrees
Grades 3-5: Six Degrees of Change: Conservation in My Community
Students learn about global warming and their community's conservation efforts. Students develop and complete a project documenting, via reporting or photography, a local conservation effort.
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/xpeditions/lessons/14/g35/SixDegrees.pdf

Grades 6-8: Six Degrees of Change: Conservation in My Community
Students learn about global warming and their community's conservation efforts. Students develop and complete a project documenting, via reporting or photography, a local conservation effort.
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/xpeditions/lessons/14/g68/SixDegrees.pdf

Human Footprint
Grades 6-8: Mapping Our Human Footprint
Students learn about the Human Footprint Atlas, analyze a map showing where and to what extent humans have influenced Earth, and participate in a class discussion. They make connections between patterns of human influence and geographic factors.
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/xpeditions/lessons/14/g68/HumanFootprintMapping.pdf

Grades 6-8: Perils of Plastic
Students learn about the world's largest "landfill", a collection of trash covering an estimated five million square miles of the Pacific Ocean. To connect this crisis to their own world students collect their recyclable trash for one week and weigh it. They extrapolate this number to make additional calculations
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/xpeditions/lessons/14/g68/HumanFootprintPlastic.pdf

Grades 6-8: Protecting Earth's Wildlife
Students learn how a growing demand for natural resources such as wood and coal threatens habitats and wildlife. They select one issue and develop a list of actions people could take to reduce or reverse the problem. They complete a project (e.g., poster, skit, graphic novel) communicating the issue and their action steps.
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/xpeditions/lessons/14/g68/HumanFootprintWildlife.pdf