Six Things You Can Do to Help Save Energy

Saving energy is just one of many things you can do to sure up your environmental wellness, but how do you do it? We’ve got some advice to help you save energy:

 

1. Reduce Your Carbon Footprint: Not only is driving everywhere bad for the planet, it also doesn’t do your wellbeing any favours. Keep fit and look after the environment by leaving your car at home twice a week. It sounds like a small measure, but this one act can help cut greenhouse gas emissions by 1,600 pounds per year. Don’t go shopping or run errands multiple times but save them up so you only need to go driving once. If your company lets you work from home sometimes, arrange to spend a few days a week out of the office so you don’t need to use your car to commute. You could also cycle, take public transport or, if you live too far away, drive as much as you need to and walk the rest of the way. These acts can help to reduce air pollution and traffic congestion – and save you money.

 

2. Don’t Idle: If your child’s school has a bus system, remind the school that bus engines should be switched off when buses are parked. When school buses are idling, the exhaust can pollute air in and around the bus, and can enter the school building through air intakes, doors, and open windows. Idling also wastes fuel and money which is pointless considering that school bus engines really need only a few minutes to warm up.

 

3. Check Your Electrics: How much of your electricity comes from renewable “green” power sources, such as wind or solar? You can check online to make sure you’re with the greenest provider possible. Green power reduces air pollution, produces less carbon emissions, and helps protect against future costs or scarcity of fossil fuels.

 

4. Make Your Home an Energy Star: Whenever you’re maintaining your home, why not do a home energy audit? This can help you find out how you can save money by making your home more energy efficient. Even if it’s something as simple as replacing your conventional light bulbs with energy-efficient ones, you can save a great deal of energy and money. If every home in the US, for example were to replace just one conventional light bulb with a compact fluorescent light bulb, they would save enough energy to light more than three million homes a year.

 

5. ECycle It: When your computer, DVD player, or other electronics die, take them to an electronics recycling centre, or look online for places that will come pick them up. Electronics actually contain a lot of vital natural resources such as copper and gold, and reusing and recycling these materials can help to reduce mining and processing. Moreover, by eCycling your electronic goods, you can help to reduce and avoid land, air and water pollution. Capturing and reusing hazardous substances such as lead or chromium prevents these substances getting into the environment.

 

6. Be an Ambassador: If everyone made such small changes as those listed above, we could make a monumental impact on the wellbeing of the planet. However, people need to hear about these changes before they can implement them in their lives – and this is where you come in. Now you have a great list of things to do to save energy, you can tell the people you know all about it. Explain to your child’s school why it’s important to teach students about energy conservation, and try to make your workplace more energy aware. Talk to you friends – help spread the word!

 

Categories: Air Pollution, bus engines, carbon emissions, conventional light, eCycling, energy, energy conservation, energy efficient, green power, light bulb, save, save energy

Global Warming is Impacting Us Now, New Report Warns

Five major aspects of environmental wellness are threatening our health, and will continue to do more and more damage. This is according to a team of 28 climate scientists from US government agencies, universities, and independent research institutions, who have released a report on how climate change has already affected our health, economic wellness and social wellbeing.

 

The report compiles the most advanced research we have on global warming, confirming previous findings that rising temperatures are a result of human activity. Published by the government’s US Global Change Research Programme, the report highlights several global warming-related problems that have already begun to take shape in the US; prolonged droughts, more intense heat waves, and more severe weather events like floods. The question is, then, how will these environmental changes affect us?

 

Extreme heat waves: Not only will this change have a more disastrous impact on your health, it will also affect transport and energy systems, as well as our production of crops and livestock.

 

More instances of heavy downpours: This is a particular problem in western and south-western America, as more heavy downpours will cause the snow to melt more quickly, which will have an impact on the level and availability of drinking water in these areas. Moreover, increased heavy downpours will lead to increased flooding.

 

Rising water temperatures: In combination with the acidification of the oceans, the rising temperature of the water threatens coral reefs. As these reefs support rich ecosystems, this can cause environmental and economic damage because these areas are vital for the tourism and seafood industries.

 

Generally warming climate: The overall warming of the atmosphere is already having a negative effect in terms of insect infestations, as these are already on the rise and are projected to increase further in the future. The same can be said for wildfires, which can threaten homes, infrastructure and lives.

 

Rising sea levels: On top of storm surges, local sea-level rise of more than three feet, will increasingly threaten homes and other coastal infrastructure. There will also be more frequent and severe coastal flooding and, eventually, land along the coast will disappear into the rising seas.

 

For the report, the researchers calculated how taking immediate action to curb greenhouse gas emissions might affect our environmental outcomes, compared to what would happen if we did nothing. This was done using computer modelling, and the scientist found the situation may not be so bleak if we act and change our ways. The authors wrote, ‘Implementing sizable and sustained reductions in carbon dioxide emissions as soon as possible would significantly reduce the pace and the overall amount of climate change, and would be more effective than reductions of the same size initiated later.’

 

Donald Wuebbles, PhD, one the report’s authors, commented in a press conference, ‘I remain optimistic that we can do something about this. We do need to act sooner rather than later because we want to avoid the worst changes, looking at these projections. We can do something about it, but we do need to act soon.’ Jane Lubchenco, PhD, undersecretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, added, ‘This report provides concrete scientific information that climate change is happening now and in our own backyards,’ and so we need to keep our eye on the ball, instead of putting environmental wellness on the back-burner while we deal with other issues.

 

Here’s a few changes you can make to mitigate climate change’s long-term effects:

 

1. Buy organic food.

2. Drive a more fuel-efficient car, or at drive more fuel-efficiently.

3. Conserve your energy use.

4. Fuel up your car after dark, when you’re less likely to lose petrol to evaporation.

5. Purchase responsibly harvested fish.

 

Categories: carbon emissions, change, Climate Change, Environmental Wellness, Extremem Heat Wave, Global Warming, heat waves, heavy downpours, nbsp, nbsp rising, threaten homes

Study Finds a Few Homes Can Have Big Impact on Environment

You may think that switching the lights off and lowering the heating isn’t doing much for environmental wellness, but you may be having a bigger impact on the planet’s wellbeing than you thought. This is according to a new study appearing in the ACS journal Environmental Science & Technology, which found that energy conservation in a small number of households could go a long way to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Led by Dominik Saner, the researchers measured differences in energy demands at the household level, examining more than 3,000 households in a Swiss town. The results of the study, which received funding from the Competence Centre for Energy & Mobility and Swisselectric Research, revealed that just 21% of the households accounted for almost 50% of greenhouse gas emissions. These few families had a disproportionately large environmental footprint due to large living spaces (which use more energy for heating, lighting and cooling) and long commutes in private vehicles.

The researchers pointed out that the energy you use to power your home and to travel accounts for more than 70% of emissions of carbon dioxide. This is the main greenhouse gas involved in global climate change, but policymakers and environmentalists have focused largely on the supply side to deal with the problem; turning to electric power plants, heating systems and cars that release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. However, Saner and his team decided to take a close look at how energy consumption for housing and land-based mobility at the household level impacts greenhouse gas emissions.

Several atmospheric gases are responsible for the greenhouse effect, including water vapour, carbon dioxide (CO2), methane and nitrous oxide. However, while methane has roughly 21 times the heat-trapping ability of carbon dioxide – according to the EPA – CO2 is frequently cited as the principal driver of global warming because we have burned so many fossil fuels like coal and oil that we have released unprecedented amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution began in the late 1700s. Still, the researchers concluded that if the emissions of the few disproportionate families ‘could be halved, the total emissions of the community would be reduced by 25%.’ So it seems that you still have your part to play in reducing carbon emissions.

Categories: carbon emissions, homes, Research

Climate Change Confusion: Are We Responsible or Not?

The planet’s poor environmental wellness may not be our fault. This is according to Tim Yeo, the MP who, as chair of the Commons energy and climate change committee, scrutinises government policy on climate change. Last week, Yeo accepted that the earth’s temperature is rising, but said that global warming may not be caused by mankind.

According to Yeo, who was an environment minister under John Major, it is possible that the increase in global temperature could be down to ‘natural phases’ in the earth’s climate, and that human action is merely a ‘possible cause’. This comes as a surprise, as Yeo has previously spoken with great certainty about the impact of mankind on climate change and is one of the Conservative Party’s strongest advocates of cutting carbon emissions. Yet now he is saying that climate change poses ‘no threat’ to the survival of the planet and the causes are ‘not absolutely clear’.

‘The first thing to say is [climate change] does not represent any threat to the survival of the planet. None at all,’ Yeo asserted. ‘The planet has survived much bigger changes than any climate change that is happening now. Although I think the evidence that the climate is changing is now overwhelming, the causes are not absolutely clear. There could be natural causes, natural phases that are taking place.’

However, he added, ‘There is at least a risk that the increased concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is a possible cause,’ and so it would be ‘prudent’ to be ‘efficient in the use of energy’. This sceptical statement is at odds with the beliefs of the scientific community. When 12,000 academic papers on climate change were recently surveyed, it was found that 97% agree that human activities are causing the planet to warm.

Furthermore, Yeo said in 2009, ‘A significant number of core Conservative voters, mostly among older people, are reluctant to accept the evidence. I don’t think they will be a significant influence in the next parliament and will gradually diminish in the population … The dying gasps of the deniers will be put to bed. In five years’ time, no one will argue about a man-made contribution to climate change.’

So what’s does Yeo really think? When asked about his comments last week, Yeo seemed to have reverted back to his 2009 beliefs, noting ‘It is possible there are natural causes as well, but my view has always been that – for twenty years – I have thought the scientific evidence has been very convincing. The strong probability is that it is man-made causes contributing to greenhouse gas concentrations.’

Categories: carbon emissions, Climate Change, Natural Causes

What is Climate Sensitivity and Should We Be Concerned?

You might have seen the phrase “climate sensitivity” come up in mainstream media articles, but what exactly is it, and how does it affect your environmental wellness?

Let’s start at the beginning: burning fossil fuels means that we have increased carbon emissions, which is known as the greenhouse effect. Because there is more carbon dioxide in the air, more heat has been trapped in the Earth’s atmosphere and this has caused a global energy imbalance. As it stands, there is more energy incoming than escaping, which will lead to the planet warming until it reaches equal levels of incoming and outgoing energy. This is known as equilibrium, or a new balanced energy state.

If you were to double the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, then the increased greenhouse effect that this would create would cause the planet’s average surface temperature to warm about 1.2°C (2.2°F) in response. This may sound like a small difference, but when you think that the difference between an ice age and the current warm period is only about 5°C (9°F), you begin to see the problem. When it comes to the earth’s climate, seemingly small temperature changes make a big impact.

On top of all this, there are feedbacks which can dampen or amplify the warming from the increased greenhouse effect. When ice melts, for example, it makes the Earth’s surface less reflective. This means that the planet will absorb more sunlight and warm further. If the atmosphere is warmer, it will also hold more water vapor, and water vapor is another greenhouse gas.

Once you have your head around this, you begin to understand what we mean by “equilibrium climate sensitivity”. This much-used phrase simply refers to the total amount of warming that will occur at the Earth’s surface once it reaches a new balanced energy state. This includes both the increased greenhouse effect from a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide, and the feedback effects. There is still a lot of uncertainty about the Earth’s exact climate sensitivity. However, while it’s an important question to resolve, from a policy standpoint, it really doesn’t matter; climate sensitivity will only be a relevant issue once we start to take serious steps to reduce carbon emissions from fossil fuels.

Categories: carbon emissions, climate sensitivity, equilibrium

How Global Warming Has Affected Our Carbon Emissions

In a new report on carbon emissions, researchers have discovered that America’s carbon dioxide emissions were at their lowest levels last year since 1994. The levels of this environmentally damaging gas have fallen by 13 percent in the past five years thanks to society’s global warming initiatives and energy-saving technologies, which have doubled the amount of companies using renewable sources. These results bring America over halfway towards meeting Barack Obama’s goal of cutting the US’s carbon emissions by as much as 17 percent from 2005 for the next decade.

 

Putting Obama in a more positive position to meet his environmental targets, America’s emissions in the latter part of last year had fallen by over 10 percent from the 2005 results. It also helps the US to better defend itself in the negotiations over global climate control. America’s sources of energy have changed drastically over the past few years, with coal falling to 18 percent – a drop from 22.5 percent in 2007. America sourced 31 percent of its electricity from natural gas-fired power plants last year, but more renewable sources are on the rise, with solar, hydro and geothermal energies being used more and more.

 

Global warming is a huge concern for scientists, with greenhouse gases damaging the ozone layer which causes the earth to heat up. This is resulting in the polar ice caps melting which is leading to the water levels rising, among other environmental concerns. There are many ways you can help to reduce your carbon emissions, by recycling, switching off lights and electrical devices when you’re not using them, and through reducing the amount of transport you use by walking or cycling instead. If everyone makes a concerted effort to reduce the amount of emissions they produce, the levels of greenhouse gases across the world will dramatically drop.

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How Global Warming Has Affected Our Carbon Emissions

Categories: carbon emissions, Global Warming, new study