10 Things We All Can Do - Global Warming

Helping our World

Published on April 20, 2007 By foreverserenity In Blogging

I found a good list that I consider doable when it comes to doing small things to help with "Going Green". Jilluser did an article about it, see the main page of JU, it's been featured, and I also did an article on it a couple of month's ago, and if I'm not mistaken, so did Gideon. [Sorry, please, go search if you're interested in reading each viewpoint, didn't copy to link before I began writig this!]

I think it's pretty much a reality that we have to do something to make our world better to live in. Improvements are great for our lives and for us to live more comfortably. However, we all have to be aware of the changes that are happening in our world today and we each should take small steps to do something to make our world better to live in tomorrow. While we don't have the answers, I certainly don't, perhaps by working together, reading more on what we each can do and making a change in the way we live, not drastically, but as I said, baby steps, we can do something to help make a difference.

I found these recommendations on About.com from an article written by Larry West. Link

(1) Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
Do your part to reduce waste by choosing reusable products instead of disposables. Buying products with minimal packaging (including the economy size when that makes sense for you) will help to reduce waste. And whenever you can, recycle paper, plastic, newspaper, glass and aluminum cans. If there isn’t a recycling program at your workplace, school, or in your community, ask about starting one. By recycling half of your household waste, you can save 2,400 pounds of carbon dioxide annually.

2) Use Less Heat and Air Conditioning
Adding insulation to your walls and attic, and installing weather stripping or caulking around doors and windows can lower your heating costs more than 25 percent, by reducing the amount of energy you need to heat and cool your home.
Turn down the heat while you’re sleeping at night or away during the day, and keep temperatures moderate at all times. Setting your thermostat just 2 degrees lower in winter and higher in summer could save about 2,000 pounds of carbon dioxide each year.

3) Change a Light Bulb Wherever practical, replace regular light bulbs with compact florescent light (CFL) bulbs. Replacing just one 60-watt incandescent light bulb with a CFL will save you $30 over the life of the bulb. CFLs also last 10 times longer than incandescent bulbs, use two-thirds less energy, and give off 70 percent less heat.
If every U.S. family replaced one regular light bulb with a CFL, it would eliminate 90 billion pounds of greenhouse gases, the same as taking 7.5 million cars off the road.

4) Drive Less and Drive Smart
Less driving means fewer emissions. Besides saving gasoline, walking and biking are great forms of exercise. Explore your community’s mass transit system, and check out options for carpooling to work or school.
When you do drive, make sure your car is running efficiently. For example, keeping your tires properly inflated can improve your gas mileage by more than 3 percent. Every gallon of gas you save not only helps your budget, it also keeps 20 pounds of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.

5) Buy Energy-Efficient Products
When it’s time to buy a new car, choose one that offers good gas mileage. Home appliances now come in a range of energy-efficient models, and compact florescent bulbs are designed to provide more natural-looking light while using far less energy than standard light bulbs.
Avoid products that come with excess packaging, especially molded plastic and other packaging that can't be recycled. If you reduce your household garbage by 10 percent, you can save 1,200 pounds of carbon dioxide annually.

6) Use Less Hot Water Set your water heater at 120 degrees to save energy, and wrap it in an insulating blanket if it is more than 5 years old. Buy low-flow showerheads to save hot water and about 350 pounds of carbon dioxide yearly. Wash your clothes in warm or cold water to reduce your use of hot water and the energy required to produce it. That change alone can save at least 500 pounds of carbon dioxide annually in most households. Use the energy-saving settings on your dishwasher and let the dishes air-dry.

7) Use the "Off" Switch
Save electricity and reduce global warming by turning off lights when you leave a room, and using only as much light as you need. And remember to turn off your television, video player, stereo and computer when you're not using them.
It’s also a good idea to turn off the water when you’re not using it. While brushing your teeth, shampooing the dog or washing your car, turn off the water until you actually need it for rinsing. You’ll reduce your water bill and help to conserve a vital resource.

8) Plant a Tree
If you have the means to plant a tree, start digging. Trees absorb carbon dioxide and give off oxygen. They are an integral part of the natural atmospheric exchange cycle here on Earth, but there are too few of them to fully counter the increases in carbon dioxide caused by automobile traffic, manufacturing and other human activities. A single tree will absorb approximately one ton of carbon dioxide during its lifetime.

9) Get a Report Card from Your Utility Company
Many utility companies provide free home energy audits to help consumers identify areas in their homes that may not be energy efficient. In addition, many utility companies offer rebate programs to help pay for the cost of energy-efficient upgrades.

10) Encourage Others to Conserve
Share information about recycling and energy conservation with your friends, neighbors and co-workers, and take opportunities to encourage public officials to establish programs and policies that are good for the environment.
These 10 steps will take you a long way toward reducing your energy use and your monthly budget. And less energy use means less dependence on the fossil fuels that create greenhouse gases and contribute to global warming.

[Note Items 1-10 copied from Larry West' article linked above]

Comments (Page 1)

Poison5

on Apr 20, 2007

These are good tips, thank you for sharing them.

Zoologist03

on Apr 20, 2007

Trees absorb carbon dioxide and give off oxygen.

They also use oxygen...but produce far more than they use. Want to know why they take up CO2?...Of course you do. Carbon dioxide is taken in through the stomata of plants and enters the Calvin Benson Cycle which fixes one molecule of CO2 for each turn of the cycle...6 complete cycles will produce the equivalent of one glucose molecule. The equation would be: 6 CO2 + 12 NADPH +18 ATP --> C6H2O6 + 12 NADP + 18 ADP + 18 Pi + 6 H2O for one molecule of glucose. (All numbers immediately after a letter are subscripts) This can vary in different plants..and also some reduction needs to go on here and there...but that's a basic reaction for C3 plants, anyway. That's why plants are interesting, they manufacture food from the air...pretty sweet, huh?

Just taking the opportunity to do a little review for finals...sorry if that's boring/incomprehensible.

~Zoo

Dr Guy

on Apr 20, 2007

They are saying that trees planted in the temperate zones are contributing to global warming.

Zoologist03

on Apr 20, 2007

They are saying that trees planted in the temperate zones are contributing to global warming

How?...They don't produce any heat...or at least any noticeable heat.

~Zoo

Dr Guy

on Apr 20, 2007

How?...They don't produce any heat...or at least any noticeable heat.

They dont reflect the sunlight either, so more is absorbed and that raises the temperature.

Hey! I did not say I buy this hockum! I just report it.

Moderateman

on Apr 20, 2007

the eleventh way is to make all the bleeding heart rich liberal millionaires that preach conserve energy to follow what they preach so hard.

the list is endless of bleeders that preach conserve, yet fly their own jets, have four houses all of them with heated pools, some of them with heated barns so their animals will not get a chill, drive hummers or other gas sucking pig autos.

JillUser

on Apr 20, 2007

yay, I pretty much already do all of the above.

Draginol

on Apr 20, 2007

(fixed bold issue)

cactoblasta

on Apr 20, 2007

Planting a tree isn't a particularly good way to increase CO2 conversion. You'd be better off turning your backyard into an algae-bloom plantation. Algae outproduces pretty much any tree.

foreverserenity

on Apr 20, 2007

These are good tips, thank you for sharing them

You're welcome!

Just taking the opportunity to do a little review for finals...sorry if that's boring/incomprehensible.

Not at all Shaun, thx for sharing! I've seen the equation before, the explanation helps!

They are saying that trees planted in the temperate zones are contributing to global warming.

How?...They don't produce any heat...or at least any noticeable heat.

It would be interesting to find out how and why! As you say Doc, the plants absorb heat, I'm always of the thought that they give off moisture into the air, so doesn't absorbing the heat helps as well? I'm no scientist, perhaps Shaun can enligten us some more!

the eleventh way is to make all the bleeding heart rich liberal millionaires that preach conserve energy to follow what they preach so hard.

I wholeheartedly agree with you Elie. Too many times they don't practice what they preach! It would be good if they did. Maybe with all the attention, they finally will!

yay, I pretty much already do all of the above.

Yes, Jill, you said that in your article! This is good! It is definately helpful if we all do a little bit of it or some or all.

I'm going to see about doing number 9, it does sound like a great idea getting the utility company to do an energy audit on my home.

As for the rest, I do practice them, my kids and hubby however, are learning since I've been reminding them to do it. It's a learned thing and everyone won't do it until it becomes a normal part of living.

fixed bold issue)

Thx Brad! I've been trying to fix it and then gave up!lol!

Planting a tree isn't a particularly good way to increase CO2 conversion. You'd be better off turning your backyard into an algae-bloom plantation. Algae outproduces pretty much any tree.

Really? Do tell Cacto! I never would have thought!

Zoologist03

on Apr 21, 2007

They dont reflect the sunlight either, so more is absorbed and that raises the temperature.

I don't buy that for one second. They absorb the photons from the sun...but that is pure energy. There is a bit of heat released when pigments return to the ground state, but have you ever touched a tree that was producing detectable amounts of heat? *psh* The crap people come up with...

You'd be better off turning your backyard into an algae-bloom plantation. Algae outproduces pretty much any tree.

Heh,you're right....I completely forgot about that.

Algae aren't technically plants, by the way...they're considered protists if you use the old Kingdom methods, that is.

Here's a quote from www.ecology.com and while the term marine plants isn't entirely accurate to describe algae it does give some decent info:

"It is estimated that between 70% and 80% of the oxygen in the atmosphere is produced by marine plants . Nearly all marine plants are single celled, photosynthetic algae. Yup, that's right, good ol' scum on the pond…green gak…..slip slimein' away. Even marine seaweed is many times colonial algae. They are a bunch of single cells trying to look like a big plant (see seaweed photo), but they are really individuals.

We need marine algae a whole lot more than they need us. Think about it….70% to 80% of all the oxygen we breathe comes from algae! Without them we would really be sucking wind, but not for long! At this point you may be saying, "Yo! What about the trees and other land plants?" Well, trees and other land plants are very important, no doubt about it. But for pure survival, we couldn't make it without algae."

~Zoo

cactoblasta

on Apr 21, 2007

There is a bit of heat released when pigments return to the ground state, but have you ever touched a tree that was producing detectable amounts of heat? *psh* The crap people come up with...

Isn't that what makes jungles so hot? I've walked through a few and they've all been much hotter inside than out under the 30+ sun.

Dr Guy

on Apr 21, 2007

They dont reflect the sunlight either, so more is absorbed and that raises the temperature.

I don't buy that for one second. They absorb the photons from the sun...but that is pure energy. There is a bit of heat released when pigments return to the ground state, but have you ever touched a tree that was producing detectable amounts of heat? *psh* The crap people come up with...

Like I said, I dont make the news, I report it. See for yourself. WWW Link

Gideon MacLeish

on Apr 21, 2007

Actually, Guy is right on this. My cousin actually is a respected researcher in this field.

foreverserenity

on Apr 21, 2007

So according to the link, cutting down the trees are bad then? When did this all change? Because according to the link, the removal of the trees to affect global warming only works well in tropical climates, which means it probably will in our warmer states here in the US of A. And it suggested working on our "energy system" instead.

Well, the thing is everything around us is changing and a solution has to be found because from what I've been reading from the various journals and magazines etc., a lot of our animals, plants and sealife are dying. There has to be an explanation for this and hopefully a solution can be found.

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