green life
http://green.yahoo.com/calculator/;_ylt=AoCTa71J7aUJnVStdX2VnYGJV8cX
The above link will allow you calculate the amount of carbon emission that your household creates, by simply answering some questions. The average American emits 9.44 tons of Co2/yr. Mine came out to 30.4 tons!!!, with 9.2 at home, 4.5 on the road, and 16.7 in the air all due to ONE overseas flight and one “little trip” to the Smokey Mountains last year. Now I truly understand the impact of the airline fiasco where transatlantic flights were flying almost empty. What an unnecessary waste!
I have tried to implement little practices in my life in an attempt to live a greener life, but it seems like 1 oversees trip does the trick in rendering all of them futile.
Tips on how to live a greener life:
Change all your light-bulbs in your home to Compact florescent bulbs (CFLs). I have been meaning to do this for a while, so hopefully it will get done this summer. They might cost a little more than the regular light bulbs, but they last much longer and they will be economical in terms of your electric bill as well.
When at the grocery store, skip the whole paper or plastic question by bringing your own reusable cloth bags. A lot of grocery store chains have been selling them for as little as 99c, and they fit a lot more things than the regular plastic/paper bags. The trick is to always keep them with you in your car so that you can use them on the next trip to the grocery store; otherwise you will end up like me, buying new ones every time you are at the store.
When at Starbucks or any other coffee place, ask for a ‘for here” cup instead of the plastic/paper ones. And trust me that shot of espresso will taste much better in a porcelain cup as opposed to drinking it out of a paper one. More importantly, at home don’t use disposable utensils and plates. Also, save glass jars from things that you buy at the supermarket, they are far more hygienic than plastic containers.
Turn off the faucet when brushing your teeth. If you follow the dentist’s orders and brush for 2 minutes, 2 minutes of letting the water run will waste a lot of water.
When buying new appliances look for the energy saving sign.
I personally am not willing to give up traveling, and if you are one of those people too you might wan to consider terrapass.com, or carbonfound.org where you can calculate the amount of carbon emission that you are personally responsible for during a flight and pay a fee for how much it would cost to offset those emissions for renewable energy. The money that you pay w goes towards buying carbon credits that fund clean energy projects like wind energy farms. It’s a very creative idea. I know there is something similar in practice with respect to companies who are not willing to reduce their carbon emissions, instead buy credits from those who do not pollute as much. It’s called Emission Trading, and it’s growing at a very fast rate. The buyer pays a charge for the pollution that they are responsible; it almost sounds like a license to pollute, but it’s better than not doing anything about the whole ordeal, because theoretically this way companies will have an incentive to reduce their carbon emissions instead of having to pay other companies for their credits. It raises issues such as: putting the burden of dealing with environmental problems on developing countries instead of developed nations, because naturally a company down in Mexico will emit far less carbon than a huge US corporation. Nonetheless, I think it’s a move in the right direction. The problem is that the rest of the world is far more engaged in such practices, than the US is.
The above link will allow you calculate the amount of carbon emission that your household creates, by simply answering some questions. The average American emits 9.44 tons of Co2/yr. Mine came out to 30.4 tons!!!, with 9.2 at home, 4.5 on the road, and 16.7 in the air all due to ONE overseas flight and one “little trip” to the Smokey Mountains last year. Now I truly understand the impact of the airline fiasco where transatlantic flights were flying almost empty. What an unnecessary waste!
I have tried to implement little practices in my life in an attempt to live a greener life, but it seems like 1 oversees trip does the trick in rendering all of them futile.
Tips on how to live a greener life:
Change all your light-bulbs in your home to Compact florescent bulbs (CFLs). I have been meaning to do this for a while, so hopefully it will get done this summer. They might cost a little more than the regular light bulbs, but they last much longer and they will be economical in terms of your electric bill as well.
When at the grocery store, skip the whole paper or plastic question by bringing your own reusable cloth bags. A lot of grocery store chains have been selling them for as little as 99c, and they fit a lot more things than the regular plastic/paper bags. The trick is to always keep them with you in your car so that you can use them on the next trip to the grocery store; otherwise you will end up like me, buying new ones every time you are at the store.
When at Starbucks or any other coffee place, ask for a ‘for here” cup instead of the plastic/paper ones. And trust me that shot of espresso will taste much better in a porcelain cup as opposed to drinking it out of a paper one. More importantly, at home don’t use disposable utensils and plates. Also, save glass jars from things that you buy at the supermarket, they are far more hygienic than plastic containers.
Turn off the faucet when brushing your teeth. If you follow the dentist’s orders and brush for 2 minutes, 2 minutes of letting the water run will waste a lot of water.
When buying new appliances look for the energy saving sign.
I personally am not willing to give up traveling, and if you are one of those people too you might wan to consider terrapass.com, or carbonfound.org where you can calculate the amount of carbon emission that you are personally responsible for during a flight and pay a fee for how much it would cost to offset those emissions for renewable energy. The money that you pay w goes towards buying carbon credits that fund clean energy projects like wind energy farms. It’s a very creative idea. I know there is something similar in practice with respect to companies who are not willing to reduce their carbon emissions, instead buy credits from those who do not pollute as much. It’s called Emission Trading, and it’s growing at a very fast rate. The buyer pays a charge for the pollution that they are responsible; it almost sounds like a license to pollute, but it’s better than not doing anything about the whole ordeal, because theoretically this way companies will have an incentive to reduce their carbon emissions instead of having to pay other companies for their credits. It raises issues such as: putting the burden of dealing with environmental problems on developing countries instead of developed nations, because naturally a company down in Mexico will emit far less carbon than a huge US corporation. Nonetheless, I think it’s a move in the right direction. The problem is that the rest of the world is far more engaged in such practices, than the US is.
posted by bizele at 4/09/2008 11:56:00 AM
2 Comments:
I'm not as technically informed as I would like to be but, I've been told that the amount of CO2 emitted during the production of a CFL bulb is larger than CO2 emitted by using an ordinary bulb. Thus the "greener" effect of CFL bulbs is merely a marketing ploy.
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