Most of us are unwilling to give up our motor vehicles or flat screens to make a small impact upon the continued health of our planet but there are a few things which we can do. This small list is by no means complete but contains hints which can improve our lifestyle while reducing our carbon footprint.
1. Plant a fast growing deciduous tree where it will shade your house during the summer. A large tree can provide enough cooling to reduce the load on your air conditioner and result in a smaller electric bill. Being deciduous, it will drop it's leaves in the fall, allowing the sun to provide warmth to the house when needed. Additionally, while in leaf, it will convert carbon dioxide into oxygen. This is true of any green plant.
2. Plant, at least, a small garden. Did you know that many of the items on the grocery shelves are transported over 500 miles? No space for a garden? Even a couple of tomato plants in containers can save you money and reward you with taste not found at the store. Patronize the local farmers market for locally grown vegetables in season.
3. Garden organically and mulch lawn clippings. Compost vegetable scraps, weeds from the garden and other yard waste. Used in the garden, compost will condition soil and provide a wide range of plant nutrients. Mulching lawn clippings reduce the need for chemical fertilizers. Overused chemical fertilizers can run off , polluting our streams and lakes.
4. Support community recycle programs. Let's not fill up the landfills with material which can be reused. Recycled metal generally uses far less energy than new material. Recycled paper and cardboard can save some of our valuable trees. Many areas have recycle centers which will pay for metal and other materials.
5. Check your home for insulation and leaks around doors and windows.
6. Use your imagination to find ways to save energy such as combining shopping into one trip, rather than two or three. Is there a nude beach closer to home?
Obviously, one person cannot make an impact but there is the personal satisfaction of doing one's part and maybe a few extra coins in your pocket.
Replies
- RO
RoosterockJul 30, 2011[quote][quote]How did AlBore get into the thread? A: he invented that preposterous, utterly meaningless term, "carbon footprint". As for the liar's personal "carbon footprint" have y'all heard of how dangerous to Gaia flat-screen TVs and monitors are? And what does that flaming hypocrite use for transportation? A Gulfstream 2B, one of the most fuel-inefficient private aircrafts on the planet. And ask him about his SUVs. Re electric vehicles, aside from their extremely limited range and their outrageous cost, they exist so that ecowackos can be trendy and "greener then thou". When there are fifty million of those shiteboxes on the road (a thoroughly preposterous notion because consumers don't want them), how the hell will we be generating all that electricity to charge them? A: more coal-fired power plants, since the enviromorons have paralyzed nuclear power. Ah, but I forget, we'll be using that "green" technology, wind power. Question: of these two, which one is "greener"? There is a political agenda behind the "green" bullshit. It was bluntly expressed by two of the guiding darks of the "small is beautiful" cult."It would be little short of disastrous for us to discover a source of clean, cheap, abundant energy because of what we might do with it. We ought to be looking for energy sources that don't give us the excesses of concentrated energy with which we could do mischief to each other." -- Amory Lovins,Mother Earth News, 11-12/77 "In fact, giving society cheap abundant energy at this point would be the equivalent of giving an idiot child a machine gun." -- Paul Erlich,Not Man Apart(Friends of The Earth), Vol 5, No. 18, Sept 1975They don't want clean, safe, abundant, affordable energy. They want political power, not electrical power. They want a chronic shortage of energy with them as the arbiters of who gets energy and how much they will be allowed. There is nothing noble about them. They are control freaks. And if they get their way, these will be our only options for transportation in the near future. We have two choices: an energy-rich, prosperous nation or a third-world craphole run by elitist pricks who have dragged us back to medieval subsistence living. I am 100% in favor of exploiting every energy resource at our disposal, including those egregiously overrated "alternatives". However, none of those greenie sources can replace conventional base-load power generation by coal and nuclear plants. Solar panels don't work at night. Windmills are useless unless the wind is blowing. And electricity demand is 24/7/365. Use them all, but be practical. Idealism never accomplished anything.[/quote] How quickly a post to use energy wisely and save what we can turned into a political diatribe and attack. How sad. I'm hoping President Obama makes a diffenece, I know he can.[/quote] Obama make a difference. What a joke. Why did he make it so GE does not have to pay taxs. Because the are working on making things green. Bull, how much is Obama going to get for this deal?ReactReply - KA
karhuukJul 30, 2011"Most of us are unwilling to give up our motor vehicles or flat screens..."
Even without giving up these things, we can still do our bit to help. An LCD tv or monitor uses a lot less electricity to run it that a CRT or a Plasma and some cars are very economical to run which lowers emissions greatly. New models are also designed for low-carbon manufacture and maximum recyclability so they have minimal environmental impact at the end of their lives.
I'm a disabled driver with a mobility problem so I don't have the option of giving up my car to go by bike and I live in a tiny village so walking into town is not an option: I can't even walk as far as the bus stop to get a bus into town. But my car emissions are so low that it's in the lowest road tax band, (here in the UK we have to pay an annual road tax if we want to drive on the roads. The greater your car's emissions, the more tax you have to pay). I also have a low enery LCD monitor on my pc and a low energy LCD tv and the use next to nothing to run which saves money as well as lowering my carbon footprint.
There are things we can all do to help, even if we want to maintain a 'hi-tech' lifestyle.ReactReply