10Things to do

So you are wondering what to do in order to help with the environmental and global warming problems? Here are 10 simple things that you can do quickly, daily or once off.

1. Change a light - Replacing one regular light bulb with a compact fluorescent light bulb will save 150 pounds of carbon dioxide a year.

2. Drive less - Walk, bike, carpool or take mass transit more often. You'll save one pound of carbon dioxide for every mile you don't drive.

3. Recycle more - You can save 2400 pounds of carbon dioxide per year by recycling just half of your household waste.

4. Check your tires - Keeping your tires inflated can improve gas mileage by more than 3%. Every gallon of gasoline saved keeps 20 pounds of carbon dioxide out of the air.

5. Use less hot water - It takes a lot of energy to heat water. Use less hot water by installing low flow showerhead (350 pounds of CO2 saved per year) and washing your clothes in cold or warm water (500 pounds saved per year).

6. Avoid using products with lots of packaging - You can save 1200 pounds of carbon dioxide if you cut down your carbage by 10%.

7. Adjust your thermostat - Moving your thermostat just 2 degrees in winter and up 2 degrees in summer. You could save about 2000 pounds of carbon dioxide a year with this simple adjustment.

8. Plant a tree - A single tree will absorb one ton of carbon dioxide over its lifetime.

9. Turn of electronic devices - Simply turing off your television, DVD player, stereo and computer when you'r not using them will save you thousands of pounds of carbon dioxide a year.

10. Change your search engine to Blackle.com instead of Google - Blackle saves energy because the screen is predominantly black. "Image displayed is primarily a function of the user's color settings and desktop graphics, as well as the color and size of open application windows; a given monitor requires more power to display a white (or light) screen than a black (or dark) screen." Roberson et al, 2002. It's a small saving, but the more people use it, the bigger the energy amounts save.

These are the easy, low cost and effective ways to save energy around your house. We just need to reduce the quantity in which we do things, not necessarily take them out of our lives for good, in order to help mother earth to sustain us.

One final piece of advice (although it might be the greatest piece still) - SPREAD THE WORD! The more people help, the more visible the effect.