Energy conservation doesn’t stop when you leave the house. Being green is a way of life. Ideally, respect for nature shadows every aspect of our being. Here are some powerful ideas from the experts:
3.0 GO GREEN IN YOUR WHOLE LIFE!
Wash your car by hand instead of driving across town to an automated car wash.
The ideal location for a house is facing south on a gentle, sloping hill so there are no obstructions to winter daylight from a sun low on the southern horizon.
Use the location’s proximity to public transportation and other facilities you need (health club, shopping, library, bicycle paths) as criteria for your next home.
Water is so scarce in so many parts of the world now that “water is the new oil.”
Refinish or paint old furniture. Donate it, or “demote” it to outdoors on the porch or patio.
Floor (circulating) fans improve comfort during the summer by keeping the air moving. They provide more local relief than ceiling fans.
Nix the ATV and get a bicycle or paddle ATV (like paddle boats).
Americans use, on average, three rolls of toilet paper each week, and it’s devastating our forests (Canada’s also). Forest-product companies pulp over forty thousand trees a day for toilet paper—forty billion rolls each year, from fifteen million dead trees. Do I hear anybody suggesting bidets in every bathroom?
Wash fruits and vegetables in a pan of water instead of under running water.
Don’t use running water to thaw out frozen foods.
Soak pots and pans instead of letting the water run while you’re cleaning them.
Bottled water can cost 250 times as much as tap water. (Some manufacturers use the Houston municipal water supply—and other municipal supplies—as their source.) Those plastic water bottles? They take over five hundred years to degrade in a landfill.
The gas that makes aerosol sprays work is propane, butane, or nitrous oxide, sometimes even Freon. Purchase non-aerosol sprays.
A high-efficiency heat pump (water heater, or any other major appliance) doesn’t increase the appraisal value of your home. All house appraisers care about is “if it works or not.” They need to change their rules to give extra value to homes with energy-saving features.
Energy cost for 1 mmBTU
- $80 gasoline
- $30 electricity
- $15 heating oil (diesel)
- $12 natural gas
Buy Energy Star appliances. They use 15 to 50 percent less energy and are your best green-energy investment. Select your next device from one of the “top ten Energy Star” lists online.
Re-sole your favorite shoes. Pity you can’t do that with sneakers—all-leather uppers, still in prime condition except for a rotten sole?
Drive your car “until the wheels drop off.” Well, not quite that far. That’s dangerous!
Bring your own cloth shopping bags to the grocery store instead of using dozens of plastic bags that take decades to decompose in the landfill.
You open up a bottle of pills: 5 percent pills by volume and 95 percent cotton? Bags of chips that are “sold by weight,” 20 percent air? Fast food sodas that are 85 percent crushed ice (they already make an 80 percent profit on that syrup mix.)
The most energy-intensive foods are meat, poultry, and fish. They require more than four times the energy of grains and twice the energy as fruits and vegetables.
Print on both sides of the paper. Recycle paper around the house; save it for the fireplace, for making laundry lists, or crayon-fun essays for the kids—or the teenagers!
Carpool with friends to entertainment venues or dining out. Take the bus together, the subway, cycle, walk!
Use “mass transit” on vacations, too—tour buses and tour vans instead of going solo (unless you’re on foot or cycling).
Bring fruits for a snack and brown-bag lunch at work. Have a hot side dish with your co-workers at lunchtime to stay in the game. (“Trade you a bowl of chili for a homemade raisin muffin.”)
Frequent your local Farmer’s Market for fresh, local produce to support your community’s hard-working farmers and growers.
My credit union has a “shred day” every year (last year it was on 9/11) where everybody in the community brings paper by for recycling: sixteen-wheeler standing by, giant commercial paper-shredder spewing confetti into the truck!
Hang damp clothes in the bathroom (they’ll dry with fewer wrinkles) in the winter to humidify the house air.
It all started with electric blankets. Now they have heated throws and mini electric blankets.
Cycling enthusiasts have battery-powered electric socks and electric gloves for those frigid winter tours-de-America. Who’s going to invent a solar-powered jersey so they can power-up their USB-long johns!
3.1 INSULATE EXPOSED PIPING IN THE CRAWL SPACE.
If your house has a pier-and-beam foundation (there’s a crawl space underneath), check to see if the pipes are well insulated. A frozen, broken pipe is a significant repair cost. Look under the house every year because sometimes wild animals can disrupt the pipe insulation or even nibble it away.
3.2 OBEY THE CAT.
Every time Bevo the cat wants to come into the house (Excuse me, but what kind of cat comes into the house to use the litter box?), she pulls open the wood screen door in front and lets the door bang closed, loud enough to be heard anywhere in the house. My neighbors down the street have a “pet door,” so their outside cat can come and go as she pleases.
3.3 HOME ENTERTAINMENT SAVES ENERGY.
Instead of driving to a movie theater, watch a streaming movie on your smart TV at home. You can eat healthy popcorn, drink low-cal sodas, make crude jokes, and laugh out loud!
3.4 SHOOT FOR THE STARS.
You always look at the gas mileage rating on the window sticker when you’re shopping for a new vehicle, right? Well, the same applies to any significant purchase. The more you use an appliance, the easier it is to justify spending a little more for an ultra-efficient model. The government (in cooperation with industry) has gone to a lot of trouble to develop “Energy Star” ratings for all major appliances. Visit EnergyStar.gov for all their research.
3.5 VACATION TRAVEL—FLY, DRIVE, TAKE A TRAIN, OR JUST NOT?
Travel by air is, in fact, more cost-effective than a single person traveling by car— at least for long distances—because there are so many people in the jet. The more people in the car, however, the more cost-effective. Going by train is roughly 50 percent cheaper than either. Personally, I recommend you vacation locally.
3.6 DIVEST FROM FOSSIL FUEL STOCKS.
The Pope announced in 2020 that the faithful not invest in fossil-fuel companies. You don’t have to be a Catholic to follow the Pope’s sage advice and send corporations a message: Go green if you want my green money!
3.7 RESEARCH ONLINE, BUT BUY LOCAL.
The Internet is an excellent resource for shopping for major appliances. You can investigate costs, efficiency, and reliability. Many blogs and experts have ranked appliances, and their evaluations are free for the reading. Do your homework on the web, then buy locally where you’ll get better service. When you buy locally, it helps your community, your schools, your neighbors—and, down the line, it ensures you of quality personalized service if anything goes wrong.
3.8 WALL STREET IS DESTROYING MAIN STREET.
National hardware store chains only want to put all the “mom and pop” stores out of business, and once they’re all gone, prices for everything will go through the roof. Local stores need your goodwill. Big Box stores couldn’t care less.
3.9 ONLINE ADVERTISING IS KILLING BRICK AND MORTAR BUSINESSES.
Every ad you click on for Google listings, every link you click at amazon.com, costs the advertisers an average of $1.00 per click!
3.9 GET A GREEN PIGGY BANK.
If it’s hard for you to get motivated to save energy, trick yourself. Imagine that your electric rate is $0.30 per kWh instead of $0.13 (utilities insist that the only way to get people to conserve electricity is to raise the rates; but they’d say that, wouldn’t they?). Stash away the difference each month when you pay your power bill, into a “green energy fund” to pay for future projects.
3.10 FREQUENT STORES THAT AWARD GREEN STAMPS.
Our grocery store back home in Baton Rouge used to give away green S&H Green Stamps with each purchase; you paste them in a book, then use it as monopoly money at the S&H Store to buy something. Who’s going to make an app for that, rewarding people for using less gas and electricity—or for vacationing locally?
3.11 BE A WEATHER BUG.
Saving on HVAC energy is all about the weather. Is it dry enough outside to open all the windows? Will a pleasant breeze flush out the house nicely? Where’s the sun on the horizon?
Low enough for some passive heating through windows on the south side of the house?
3.12 WEATHERUNDERGROUND.COM HAS AN EXCELLENT TEN–DAY FORECAST PAGE.
It shows a graphic of temperature, wind, cloud cover, and rain chances. Pay close attention to the dew point values: it’s dew point, not the humidity, that tells you if it’s comfortable outside.
Dew point values
- < 55° F = dry
- 55-60° F = comfortable
- 60-65° F = humid
- 65-70° F = muggy
- 70-75° F = oppressive
- > 75° F = miserable
3.12 RECYCLING LUMBER SAVES TREES.
Take care of your wood-frame house because all that lumber embodies carbon captured from the atmosphere. If the house falls into disrepair and has to be demolished, all that carbon contributes to global warming.
3.13 RECYCLING LUMBER SAVES TREES.
Take care of your wood-frame house because all that lumber embodies carbon captured from the atmosphere. If the house falls into disrepair and has to be demolished, all that carbon contributes to global warming.
3.14 THE COMMERCIAL CONSTRUCTION CULTURE DISREGARDS THE CARBON FOOTPRINT.
The standard practice with large buildings is to destroy them after twenty to thirty years. What a waste! It’s engineers’ and architects’ version of “planned obsolesce” to ensure the next generation has work to do.
3.15 BE A DIM WIT.
If you can’t turn a light off, dim it down. If you can live with the thermostat set a degree or two colder in the winter, make it so and wear a sweater or long johns. One degree lower for eight hours equals 1 percent savings. If you set the thermostat back 7° or 8° F for eight hours a day (when you’re at work), you get 10 percent savings.
3.16 PLASTICS ARE FOREVER.
The COVID pandemic has made it okay to reuse Ziploc and other heavy-plastic bags. A good hand washing in piping hot water, drying the bag overnight, and voila! It’s ready for another round. Eventually, you’ll wear it down so that it only takes ten years to decompose in the landfill instead of two hundred.
3.17 CAT HUNGRY. CAT WANT FOOD.
Would you rather be woken up every morning by a rude, obnoxious alarm clock or by a hungry cat tactfully stomping on your back and licking your face with her sandpaper tongue? Oscar’s more punctual than a barnyard rooster. She’s never more than two minutes off—well, except when they change to daylight savings time.
3.18 THE SHOULDER OF DEATH.
I’m supposed to feel comfortable cycling on that minuscule shoulder on winding mountain roads just because they have “Be Friendly to Bicycles” signs?
3.19 LOBBY YOUR CITY COUNCIL FOR “CYCLE SUNDAYS.”
If cities want to reduce traffic and pollution, they need dedicated bicycle lanes. Bogota, Colombia, bans cars every Sunday on all the city roads. People love it! The streets are full of folks tooling around on their bicycles.
3.20 POP CULTURE IS FULL OF TWO–DIMENSIONAL CARDBOARD HEROES.
Hollywood has brainwashed the world with hundreds of nature-is-evil horror flicks. It’s no wonder half of Americans have never left their big-city homes. Who cares if we’re in the middle of the worst wildlife extinction event in the history of the universe? “What’s wildlife? Nature? You mean it really exists?”
3.21 SCIENCE 4 IDIOTS.
The 50 percent of the population who believe God created the world—just like the Bible says—also believe God will save the world from global warming. What about the billions of years God spent shepherding life on Earth before man showed up?
Don’t those untold millions of other species count?
3.22 NIX THE GAS PILOT LIGHT.
If your natural gas furnace, water heater, or stove has a pilot light, you’re wasting gas to keep it burning 24/7. It’s worth your while to replace it with an electronic ignition switch. Otherwise, you can turn the gas furnace pilot light off at the end of the heating season.
3.23 READ EBOOKS AND SAVE PAPER.
Electronic books are very energy-efficient. Just think of all the paper they save. Audiobooks are fun, too. You can listen while commuting, out on a walk—or when the mother-in-law is visiting!
3.24 FLY FREE WHEREVER AND WHENEVER YOU WANT.
Wealthy people get so many “frequent flyer” miles that they can travel first-class anywhere in the world, any time they want—no charge. The rest of us foot the bill.
3.25 ROTE LEARNING TAKES TIME—OR NOT.
The experts say you have to do something sixty times before it becomes a habit. I wish they’d tell my cats that. All it takes is one cat treat or pinch of chicken off my sandwich at lunch and it becomes writ in stone—for life!
3.26 THE GREAT HOME WARRANTY RIP–OFF.
I’m not a big fan of home warranties, which (for a stiff fee) send somebody to repair your major appliances. If you aren’t good with repairs, if you have older appliances, if you don’t have the discipline to sock away $50 a month into a “repair fund,” or if you’re on such a tight budget that one major repair bill means bankruptcy, a home warranty could give you some peace of mind.
3.27 HOME WARRANTIES ARE GOOD INSURANCE WHEN YOU BUY OR SELL A HOUSE.
I’d recommend you definitely purchase a home warranty whenever you move into a new house to cover any unexpected high-dollar expenses. Some realtors automatically purchase home warranties on all properties they list.
USE SIESTA TIME TO CHARGE YOUR BATTERY.
I suppose taking a nap in the heat of the day is a reasonable way to save on your utility bills, so long as you don’t drive home to take the siesta, or turn the thermostat way down when you get there.
3.28 DON’T MAIL. FAX OR E–MAIL.
If you need to send a document, scan it and fax it, either with your own machine or online, or take a photo with your smartphone and e-mail it. You save money on a postage stamp, paper, and transportation-mailing costs.
3.29 ELECTRIC BICYCLES ARE A GOOD CHOICE FOR HILLY TERRAIN.
If you live in a hilly area and need a power boost to cycle the roads, consider an electric bicycle. They’ve been around for many years now. The technology is mature and dependable, if a little on the expensive side. Be sure it’s a manual-power model, not a full-electric motor scooter, so you get a good workout on the flat sections of the road.
3.30 ONLINE COMMUNICATION SERVICES SAVE TIME AND MONEY.
Why drive halfway across town to meet somebody a couple of times before you know if there’s chemistry when you can chat online first? Tele-health is now all the rage, too, on account of the pandemic. The VA has a great “secure messaging” system that works really well. Vets can also call any time, day or night, to get advice from a registered nurse.
3.31 HORSE POWER HAS ITS PLACE IN THE HECTIC WORLD.
You can hardly save more energy than by going Amish and riding a horse or using a buggy to get around? Many U.S. cities have mounted police, such as New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Houston.
3.32 CALL IN THE CAVALRY!
The U.S. Border Patrol should contract out security along the U.S.-Mexico border to the Native Americans—on horseback! How Wild West is that? Absent taking scalps, of course.
3.33 RECHARGEABLE BATTERIES SAVE VALUABLE RESOURCES.
Many professionals use flashlights on the job: cops, termite inspectors, night guards. Imagine all the batteries they go through in a year! Rechargeable batteries don’t save energy, but they definitely save lots of zinc, manganese, and potassium, all of which can be recycled into fertilizer, but usually waste away in the landfill. Tactical flashlights have the battery built-in, and you recharge it with a USB cord.
3.34 SITTING IS THE NEW SMOKING.
Get a stand-up desk. I have one of those little elliptical bicycle machines under the desk to work out while I work. Exercise makes the brain function better.
3.35 BOX UP ALL THOSE STUPID BOOKS OVERFLOWING THE BOOKSHELVES AND PUT THEM IN STORAGE.
No! Wait. I was only kidding. Leave the books. The more thermal mass inside your house the better. Books are good! They encourage you to turn off the TV, to stretch out on the sofa and read. Please? You can even put your feet up on the coffee table.
3.36 TURN ON THE CEILING FAN.
Moving air makes it feel several degrees cooler in the summer. Reverse the rotation in the winter to move warm air off the ceiling and down to the floor level, heating the space better.
3.37 GET A PROGRAMMABLE THERMOSTAT.
Forgetting to adjust the thermostat when you leave to work in the morning can hike up your utility bill big-time. (Better than my out-of-town neighbors who forget and leave the AC on for months on end!) Avoid that unnecessary expense and get a programmable thermostat. Then you can adjust the temperature a few degrees at night after everybody’s asleep.
3.38 SAVE THE BUBBLE BATH FOR SPECIAL OCCASIONS.
Baths waste too much water! Showers are much better.
3.39 POTTED PLANTS LOVE SUNLIGHT.
A house is, for the most part, sealed tight against the outdoors. The people inside breathe in oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide. The more people, and the higher their activity level, the faster the air supply becomes oxygen-depleted and carbon dioxide-rich.
3.40 LOCK THE WINDOWS.
Windows are notorious for leaks. Locking the window latch keeps leaks to the absolute minimum.
Future Tech!
3.41 Junior and high schools should give extracurricular credit to students who bicycle to school. (Or, at the very least, a PE class credit.)
3.42 Every “home economics” and “shop” class should include energy conservation basics in the curriculum.
3.43 Every old railroad track not in use should be made into a multi-use trail and added to the national Rails to Trails Conservancy. Old logging trails are great for mountain biking.