Top 10 ways you can help save energy!

The following is a list of 10 ways you can help make a difference by conserving energy. The list was compiled by Roberta Fernandez of the Climate Project (http://www.climateproject.org/). She will be presenting a slideshow based on the documentary An Inconvenient Truth on campus at the HCC Brandon Campus Auditorium on Thurs., Sept. 27th at 1pm. Also note that we do have the DVD of the movie in the library available for check out. Check this blog in the coming months for more information.

Top 10 Ways To Save Energy

1. 
   Carpool, walk, ride a bike, use mass transit: If every commuter did this 1 day at home,
   we’d save 5.85 billion gallons of gas and 143 billion tons of CO2
2. 
   Get better gas mileage: Every 3 miles per gallon improvement can save 3,000 lbs. of CO₂
   per year; A hybrid car can reduce CO₂ by 16,000 lbs. and save you $3,750 per year;
   Rapid acceleration can decrease mileage by 5 to 33%
3. 
   Replace your bulbs with CFL’s: If every house used only 1 CFL, it would be equivalent
   to removing of 1 million cars from the roads; Lighting accounts for 20% of all electricity
   consumed in the US
4. 
   Set your thermostat at 78 in the summer and 68 in the winter: Heating/cooling your home
   accounts for about 45% of a home’s total energy use.
5. 
   Seal your doors and windows, insulate. The average home causes more pollution than our
   car because of the fossil fuels burned to supply the power we need.
6. 
   Unplug everything you are not using: Standby power can account for 9-10% of
   household energy. A television uses 25% of its energy when it is turned off.
7. 
   Take shorter showers: aim for 5 minutes; 1883 low flow shower heads will save 472,630
   lbs. of CO₂
8. 
   Stop junk mail: The production of junk mail consumes as much energy as 2.8 million
   cars. There are 200 million trees cut for junk mail every year – that’s like cutting down
   the Rocky Mt. National Park 3 times per year
9. 
   Use refillable and reusable containers, recycle: 1.5 million barrels of oil is used for
   America’s bottled water. This equals fueling 100,000 cars for a year. 8 out of 10 bottles
   end up in landfills; Worldwide, 500 billion plastic bags are manufactured each year, that
   is nearly 1 million per minute. Use cloth bags instead
10. 
    Use the power of your voice and your votes: Write your local, state and federal officials
    to let them know you think this is a critical issue that needs to be addressed with
    appropriate measures.